


What is this: Is it too much to ask

by Gadeshua (KerryLamb)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda spoilers but not really, Star Trek Beyond Spoilers, needy, no one do anything stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KerryLamb/pseuds/Gadeshua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Spock makes mention of leaving Starfleet to help with the conservation effort for the Vulcan people, Nyota is pressed to her heart's limit and requests some time hiatus to think about what he said. As they are stationed on the Yorktown in the aftermath of Krall's attack, Nyota and Spock struggle to give each other space and work on themselves. Nothing seems clear anymore and it's far easier to hurt than it is to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Star Trek Beyond and was left wanting. Mostly for S/U scenes and I'm SOOOOOO over emo, depressed ultra-pseudo Vulcan-y Spock. I want happy Spock, I want Spock bae to have everything his little err maybe giant green heart wants out of life and so in my post-movie gloom I started to write this the morning after I wrote it. Don't get me wrong guys there are some precious gems in that movie as far as character interactions and our poor fallen babyangel Anton ( RIP Yel-dawg) but I was left sooooooo confused as to what the hell Spock and Nyota are hence the damn fic that I drunkenly wrote.
> 
> Just so we're clear Spock needs to fangirl Nyota so bad for her GD loyalty to you. How you gonna do that to your ride or die? God she's so awesome in the movie. Thick and thin Nyota's been with you and you gonna just be like half assed about your relationship?! No more, not in my fucking fics you won't Spock. You're going to effin love her to the end of GD time!

The nights and mornings were the hardest to adjust to. Nyota’s body lay stiff and frigid beneath the sheets, waiting in expectation of his firm, warm frame behind her. It’s hard but not unbearable.

 

In the soft, quiet between sleep and the waking world, she still finds him in her mind, waiting to embrace her. It’s not lush fullness of his physical form but a foggy haze in her mind where Spock lies nestled, cradling her just a firmly as his arms would.

 

Neither wants to wake but the world is unjust to lovers and time stops for no one.

Cool, white light splashes onto her face and Nyota wakes up alone. As with every other day, she showers, unaware that Spock is doing the same in his quarters. They towel off in tandem, and as Nyota eats her breakfast, Spock meditates over his people and places he can no longer see.

 

They each get dressed in the Yorktown’s grays, hers accented with red while his is piped with blue. Both walk to their front doors, Nyota’s stride sure and steady as the Vulcan’s long use to be. For anyone who’s watching and for those who know him, there is a slight limp Spock’s developed as he heals.

 

McCoy says he’s physically fine and that the problem with his gait is all in his head but no matter how hard he works to stop himself the stutter in his gait stays with him.

 

Their entryway doors slide open on their approach and they pause in the door. Spock looks down to his right and Nyota up to her left where the other has always been. The empty space beside them mocks their expectations and beckons them to move on.

 

They turn their gaze back out towards their hallways and take a collective breath. As they leave their quarters and the lingering feel of their link behind, Spock and Nyota go through one more day where _they_ don’t exist.

 

\-------

 

They don’t see each that often. Given their different divisions and housing assignments in Yorktown it’s easy to see why but when they do cross paths, each encounter breathes life into the frustration both of them feel but don’t know how to relieve.

 

Spock for his part acts as if he hasn’t tried time and again to leave her while he attempts to ‘purge’ himself of the negativity that shackles him.

 

Noble as it seems on its face he has never truly let her go. There is no casual romance for Vulcans, the very concept of it goes against their nature. His affection for her is clear in the very way he looks at her as she speaks, speaks of her when she’s not there and dreams of her on his nights alone.

 

Spock loves her, misses her terribly from what Jim and Bones tell her but letting him back in now is just too much for her to take. Despite his attempts to, he hasn’t changed. She doesn’t fault him for it, it wasn’t her mother and planet that were destroyed, her guilt she was faced as she served above the enterprise as the Vulcans sought to restore their culture.

 

Spock wasn’t healing with her and Nyota was hurting with him so they developed into complications.

 

That night as he delineated point by point of why he should leave Starfleet and go to New Vulcan, her mind became strangely dim. His words washed over her, largely unheard as she felt her chest burn and constrict at what she always feared would happen. He loved her, said as much as he started the personal presentation over his exodus but his love of her wasn’t enough to make him stay. She wasn’t enough, of that much she was sure, so at the mention of repopulation efforts Nyota stood up and excused herself before listening any further.

 

Maybe she should have listened but what really was there to say if he was leaving? Even with Spock here, he hadn’t been truly _there_ for a while now. She held onto the hope that he would be but now…

 

He refused the necklace, he came to save her, even made an effort to talk with her at the surprise party for Kirk but these things weren’t enough, not after everything that happened.

 

She had kept the necklace, saved him in turn and spoke with him with polite fondness but she could no longer deny the pain he had caused her. As different as their people were, the challenges she had to navigate there paled in comparison to loving a broken man.

 

Nyota always wanted what was best for him but now in the interim of the Enterprise reconstruction, she was taking time to want what was best for her. For her being stationed at Yorktown was a jab on the restart button. Maybe with a little faith it could be a new beginning for whatever was left of their relationship as well.

 

\------------

 

Nyota turned her head again, checking the position of her hair before swiping her finger under her lid to remove an errant smudge of eyeliner. As she rolled her lips to even her lipstick she glanced over to bright blue gem glowing dimly on her dresser. She hadn’t the heart to put it back on, mostly because she saw the harm in doing so.

 

It was a gift, that much was certain but the rare, sentimental pendant had been far from free. It had been given after countless nights of worry, long weeks spent wondering if this would be the day the other shoe dropped and years loving a man who barely loved himself. It had been tiring and painful and she had to be honest the hardest challenge she ever faced.

 

What was facing the three madmen when she couldn’t save _them_ from ending?

 

Casting her eyeing away from the heirloom, Nyota’s hand retrieved her earrings and threaded them through her lobes. Judging her reflection once more, she turned on her heels and hit the bedroom light.

 

She didn’t have to turn back to know the gem was still glowing behind her.

 

\--------

 

“ Nyota.”

 

She turned to find him walking up behind her, his gait still stilted from his injury just weeks earlier. She met his eyes and held them for a moment, savoring the warm familiarity as his gaze took her in.

 

It wouldn’t have been something that she would have counted as a thing she would miss but then so much of their adult lives had been shared and spent together. After a while habits form, traditions develop and inside jokes were commonplace.

 

She smiled up at him and clutched her work bag against her chest in an unconscious effort to put space between the eager look he gives her and giddy flip her heart makes in recognition of it.  “ Spock. Good morning.”

 

“ Indeed.” he agreed falling in alongside her. Guess they’ll be walking together she thought as he came an inch too close for comfort. How was it that having him near her could feel so good but ache just as badly?

 

“ Have you found your assignment aboard the Yorktown to your satisfaction, Lieutenant Commander?”

 

Nyota huffed as he placed an emphasis on her new rank. It was his small way of showing pride in the wake of her heavy commendations.

 

Kirk had been quite generous in recommending them but they weren’t anything that he or any other person serving under him wouldn’t have done in her place. Crew was family as much as it was a team. She wasn’t under any illusions however that she was one of Jim’s favorites. He was one of her favorites too.

 

“ It’s been pleasantly boring.” she replied with a closed mouth grin. She resumed her path towards station headquarters and he slowly followed alongside her. The material of his uniform brushed her bare arm and she flinched before she could stop herself.

 

He noticed of course, but rather than question over her response as was his typical behavior, Spock diverted her attention to the suspended river floated off to their right. “ I have noted a significant increase in traffic over the past two weeks of family members coming to pay their respects to their deceased loved ones.”

 

“ Yeah, I noticed too.” she sighed, casting her eyes to the shuttles hovering below the water’s surface and then down to the bright right tulips lining the garden corridor. The terran flower looked so out of place this cheery and far from home.

 

“ Are you planning to attend or participate in any of the ceremonies?” he asked lightly. The question and his tone catches her off guard and she watches him from the corner of her eye. “ Sort of. I don’t want to disturb the families but I wanted to take time to stop and remember them at the memorial they’ve temporarily erected at the base’s nexus. Maybe sometime next week after some of the visitors thin out.”

 

Spock’s eyes darted from her face down to the textured aluminum ground beneath them, actively working to smooth his gait. _His wound still must be hurting him_ , she thought glumly as he pushed his arm against his side. _When would he ever take the time to sit down and properly heal anything?_

 

“ If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition I would enjoy accompanying you to Yorktown’s city center to mourn our fallen comrades.”

 

This time Nyota did look up at him and was met with the full power of his dark gaze. She swallowed audibly and felt her eyes flutter in an effort blink away her tears. Spock tilted his head to regard her reaction and came to stop in front of her. “ Does my request offend you?”

 

Nyota shook her head, waving her hands back in forth in protest. “ No, no, not at all. I’m just surprised. Starfleet already had its formal wake and procession for everyone. You feel the need to do more?”

 

He squared his shoulders and looked off past her as he answered. “ In the past I have not seen the need to attend more functions than necessary. Each exchange in the social sphere leaves me mentally fatigued as I shield myself from unsolicited touches and unrefined manners. Not unlike our time with Khan and the lose of my planet and mother...I grieve with thee.”

 

And for the first time since Kirk died, Spock teared up in front of her.

 

\--------

 

Next week came more quickly than she imagined it would, as she stands waiting on the edge of the city’s center.

 

She saw him approaching before she heard his booted footsteps, tapping along the metal pavement. He dons Vulcan robes, black on black with his sigil and name embroidered along the lapel. In his hands Spock carried a small box and on his face he wore a mask of serene indifference. Nyota knew how to see through it, however, she doesn’t do that too him, not right now. He is conducting himself as any Vulcan would and far be it from her to judge him as anything other than.

 

When he reached her Nyota turned and the pair marched their way to the bizarre wooded square. A tree from each fallen officer’s and enlisted crew member’s home planet, stood there in their place, in a multi sensory palette of color, smell, texture and sound.

 

Nyota placed her hand on the tall, spindly trunk of a longleaf pine, newly planted for Junior grade Lieutenant Sanders. She drew her hand away to examine the sticky smudges of sap that transferred over while Spock moved to the willow tree off to the left. They examine each specimen, recalling memories to the names written on the plates affixed to the ground below.

 

Nyota made her way over to Spock as he lingered by a flowering tree in a soft blue shade of cerulean. With each artificial breeze produced by the station's climate hub, ovid petals gently drift over the surrounding garden, though the tree never seemed to lose its fullness.

 

It looked familiar to her, like the Vulcan trees she saw on her stay there but the color. Spock often spoke about how this would happen with organic matter when it was placed somewhere it wasn’t intended to habituate. Perhaps the lighting here on the Yorktown has changed the color? She wondered if being rooted here had changed more than what they could see.

 

In her midst of her musing, Spock knelt down at its roots and examined its gray trunk. After a moment he came to a decision and started to dig in the soil below. Carefully Spock placed the box within the hole he created and slowly slid the dirt over top of it.

 

Nyota stooped down and sat on the back of her heels as she watched him stare after the latent item. As she waited the noisy clicks of the Trillian oak’s leaves filled her ears in their silence. The low hum of the Andorian silk shrub soon joined in as it worked the water collected by its roots through its system. The Bolian plum tree blossoms perfumed the air in the awkward stench of gym clothes and magnolias.

 

These should be people here, she thought tearfully, they didn’t deserve to die. Not even the man whose tree stood gracefully before them. He passed before their run in with Krall but his death was no less felt by those who came to know him.

 

A few minutes pass before Spock came to himself and blinked over at her. The longer he stared, the softer his focus became and Nyota felt the tenderness reflecting back within her own gaze.

 

He extended his hand out towards her and placed a small, covered picturePADD in her hand. Shifting on her feet, Nyota slid it open to find a crew, not unlike their own with faces that are far older than they are now. In the photo, the two of them are smiling, Spock off to the left and her to the right with Scotty’s arm at her waist. His Scotsman's hair is darker and his body more robust but his cheery disposition is evident as he grins ear to ear at the camera.

 

“ Scotty?” she asked aloud with a laughing smile and Spock bobbed his head to the side with a small smile of his own. “ It would appear so. Perhaps Spock in that timeline was never taken note of by Uhura?”

 

Nyota scoffed and replaced the device back in his palm. Her fingers lingered over his in a motion she knew she shouldn’t initiate but finds too compelling not to do. He inhaled sharply with a flare of his nostrils and withdrew her fingers with a mild smile. “ If she was anything like me, Spock was always in the running.”

 

She watched as his adam’s apple bobbed against the high collar of his tunic and licked nervously at her lips. Spock’s eyes never left hers as he pocketed the picturePADD and stood up stiffly above her. Nyota rose alongside him but gazed down at the ground, suddenly shy. She should not have touched him like that. She shouldn’t have said such things while they were like... _this_.

 

“ I believe the prime version of myself to be much more deserving of his Uhura’s attention in comparison to myself. However, I am aiming to be worthy of it.”

 

Quicker than Nyota can register, Spock hooked his fingers around hers and slid gently across the slender shape of them. The emotions conveyed within his grasp are too much to decipher but make her well up with mirrored feelings of her own.

 

All too soon he released her and tucked his hands back behind his back with a mask of serenity. 

 

However their current relationship could be defined, _they_ were far from over.

 

\-------

 

In typical Vulcan fashion when Nyota said things were _up in the air_ Spock did not infer the intended meaning. She should know better by now to use jargon with an alien but then again his mother was human.

 

“ I do not understand how our association pertains to atmospheric composition?”

 

As much as she wanted to groan at his obtuse irritation, Nyota palmed her face and sighed into her hands. “ You’re right, Spock, that it doesn’t relate. Speaking plainly, I...you hurt me. A lot.”

 

Spock opened his mouth to challenge her when he noted the look on her face. He pursed his lips with a fretful look to his eyes but he nodded for Nyota to continue.

 

She gazed down at her chest and took a deep breath in. “ I love you.”

 

“ You know my estimation of you to be the same.” he quipped a hair to quickly to appear unaffected by her words. “ It is for this very reason I wish to continue our acquaintance as it was before.”

 

“ And see, that’s where I have a problem.” she said, furrowing her brow. “ I want to be with you. I want you so bad that it hurts but we can’t go back and live in the past.”

 

His eyes fluttered for a moment before blinking down to his boots, half hidden beneath his desk. He had paged her comm for the talk in his office and feeling that it would be a constructive use of their break. Now it seemed that would not be the case. “ I see.”

 

She shook her head slowly and exhaled through nose. “ No...you don’t. Trying to recapture the past is what got us where we are now. We can’t go back to that unjaded freshness we first had when we first started dating. So much has happened and things have changed, we’ve changed…”

 

Nyota ran her fore and middle finger back and forth from the bridge of her nose to the edge of her cheekbone. “ With everything that’s happened, we have to move forward by pushing beyond them if we’re going to make it.”

 

“ Are you asking me to forget-”

 

“ No, no, no. No.” she said furiously shaking her head. She rubbed her face again and rolled her lips across the tip of her tongue. “ I wouldn’t ask anyone to forget something as traumatic as the things you’ve been through. What I’m asking for Spock, is for you to be live on happily in spite of the pain. You’ve been just existing, you’ve been lost.”

 

She swiped at her nose to get rid it of the wetness threatening to spill from her nostrils and sniffed for good measure. “ There was a long time where you were _there_ but not _truly_ present with me. It was hard to see you hurting so bad and feel so helpless to do anything about it...for a while I was scared to think that the best case scenario with you was just being dumped. It was either that or you leaving me for another Vulcan or...just...not wanting to liv- “

 

She stumbled over her words and sniffed again with a bite to her bottom lip. It was hard to put into words what she had felt over the years without being overwhelmed in finally gave it voice. Even more inundating was the face Spock gave her as he actually listened to her. He wasn’t trying to argue away her concern or invalidate her emotions, he was trying to understand her. It was finally clear to see he wanted _them_ and it was felt so good that it burned at her. “ God, I’m sorry I just…”

 

Nyota rose to her feet, making as if to leave. Spock stood with her and came to stand behind her. She was boxed in, the a chair on either side, a desk in front with the Vulcan to her back. She turned to face him with her eyes averted but he tentatively took her hands and pulled her closer. She fell against him with a huff and stiffened as he embraced her. If she relaxed he would have her all over again but she need to know that he was committed. “ Spock. Please.”

 

His hot arms tightened around her as he pressed her closer and rustled her hair with a deep sigh. “ I need you.”

 

Nyota shut her eyes tightly and shook her head against his chest, further mussing her hair as she fought her tears. Why did he go and say that? “ Spock-”

 

“ I am sorry for making you feel unwanted and unnecessary.” he said softly. He sounded no better than she did, his deep voice wavering as he continued on with his cheek pressed against the crown of her head. “ I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth, Nyota.”

 

A sob tore out from her lips as she clawed at the front of his jacket. Spock huffed lightly as he dipped his head and caught her mouth with his and from there she was lost. The dim awareness she had of Spock in the back of her mind rekindled in a flash of longing that threatened to paralyze her.

 

Spock broke the kiss and caught her by the waist as her knees gave out, holding her steady as he nuzzled his face alongside hers with his forehead butted against hers. His face was screwed up as if he were in pain, breathing in ragged huffs across her face before he cupped her face and reclaimed her lips. Nyota melted into his hands and sighed at the familiar plane of his mouth, wrapping her arms around him as if he risked disappearing.

 

For what may have been minutes they kissed each other with everything that was left to be said. Spock tilted his head and leaned closer while Nyota countered his movements as she kissed him back. The hunger in the bond between them beat at them to be filled and neither wasted any time with seeking to appease it.

 

By the time they part Nyota mouth felt pleasantly numb and thoroughly plumbed. Spock stood panting above her, meeting her eyes with a slow, feline blink. She ran her tongue over the top of her lip and felt his breath breeze over the sensitive flesh. She closed her eyes and hugged him once more, shifting to alleviate the stiffness in her legs. “ What are we doing?”

  
Spock’s hands shifted along her face to come and rest on her shoulder. Resting his head again on top of hers he exhaled silently with a slightest tilt to his lips. “ Healing.”


	2. You give me pause at present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spock and Nyota make headway in connecting further and try not to let nerves and doubts destroy what little they have left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had a dollar for every WIP I have right now I'd have a good 30 something dollars in my hand. Only a few are not in my backburner folder but for those which aren't know that I'm trying to post them soon ( Between two suns, Crown jewels, a few prompts and a couple of gifts). A number of people expressed interest in seeing more in this story so here we are.

 

It’s hard to know when to stop him and the times she should let him in.

 

One such instance came after Spock came back from another excursion through the nebula to the uncharted planet, Altamid, where the last Enterprise met its fate. It was from the first excursion that he retrieve some of the personal effects that decorated his room. So when he presented her with the mud splattered, charred remains of her beloved bolian fern Nyota finds herself surprisingly touched by the gesture.

 

The purple plume like leaves are a ghost of themselves, more gray than anything but she loves that it survived and that he retrieved it. “ Thank you.”

 

He nodded and made light of the gesture. “ Its presence would be disruptive if not potentially hazardous to the planet’s lifeforms if it had remained on its surface. Despite its appearance, it is still very much alive.”

 

Nyota brushed some of the caked dirt from the pot’s side. “ I’m glad you got it.”

 

He stepped closer, gently running a finger over the tiny lavender fiddleheads buds nestled in the middle of the plant. “ You were very diligent in its care.”

 

Her eyes traced the movement of his hand as he checked over the fern’s primary stipe, like a parent looking over a child’s wound.

 

It had been the first gift he had given her, out of practicality as much as aesthetics as the purple mass of leaves was scientifically proven to heighten one’s mood. She had accepted it gleefully, cupping the Vulcan piece of pottery the young sprout had been placed in and thanked him with quick peck on his cheek. It had been egregiously forward of her but Spock took her expression of gratitude almost as readily as she gave it.

 

Nyota had owned it since before they were even an item but saw it as a token of their unique bond to one another. Glancing up for his fingers she nervously licked her lips and asked now what she hadn’t thought to inquire then. “ I never asked why you chose this plant in particular to give me.”

 

Spock continued to look over the plant as he answered her quietly. “ In Bolian mythology, it is said that their council of creators wished to construct something whose beauty would instill the viewer with a sense of gratitude at simply being in its presence. They worried that such a beautiful thing would be hunted if it were an animal or coveted if it were a mineral so they place the enchantment inside a plant that no one cared to eat and thrived in even the most extreme of conditions. In this the council of creators gave the gift of beauty and thankfulness to the Bolian people.”

 

Heat crept up her neck as Nyota cleared her throat with a humorless laugh. She certainly hadn’t been expecting that answer. He was watching her now, waiting for her to reply when she dodged the discussion. “ A crash landed constitution class starship would definitely classify as an extreme condition.” she chortled.

 

“ Verily.” Spock agreed as a matter of fact with a small quirk to his lips. His hands slid down the pot against hers in a caress that made her flinch in surprise. Nyota would have nearly dropped the pot if he hadn’t cupped his hands around hers.

 

Her breath hitched in her throat at the emotions that swept through her like a bustling gale. For all his calm demeanor, the feelings housed within him towards her felt like a rip current. The longer he touched her, the further off Nyota drifted, gasping softly every so often as the current that move them pulled her down and threatened to steal her consciousness. Everything of what he felt Nyota was laid bare in the palm of his hand.

 

The strength of it frightened them both but as vulnerable as they currently were with each other, neither of them would have it any other way.

 

Spock held her hands against the potted plant and rubbed his thumbs into the sides of her hands. “ I sought to give you something that reflected my opinion of you. In all things Nyota, you give me pause.”

 

Nyota’s heart thrummed loudly in her ears as his fingers joined his thumbs in smoothing against the back of her hands. A drunken dizziness pooled inside her head as he came closer still, standing toe to toe with her, with the plant as they only barrier between them.

 

Flustered and somewhat reticent about her own longing, Nyota shook her head and gave another nervous laugh. “ I...uhh. I don’t know what to say. Thank you, you’re too kind.”

 

“ The pleasure is indeed all mine, Nyota.” he said softly, strumming his fingers. She became aware that his hand had gone from cupping hers to _kissing_ them. Her lip trembled as that all too familiar headiness sank inside her like silk running slowly over her skin.

 

The heat at her neck washed over her face as Spock continued to watch her with a light blush of his own. “ You keep on saying my name.” she replied feebly.

 

“ Because it pleases me to do so.” The link between them vibrated with what felt like an audible hum as Spock blinked down at her face, staring away her lips before returning his gaze to her eyes. “ Being in your presence has made me quite grateful. I am grieved that it took your absence to be reminded of that fact.”

 

She dropped her gaze from his eyes and chewed the inside of her cheek as she remembered his proposed departure for Vulcan and the pain of abandonment therein. He stayed, that much was clear but the thought that he would still burned at her breast and clawed at her breath. Her heart lurch, unknowing of what to do or what to say.

 

Should she let him further in or protect herself a little while longer. Spock stood patiently, waiting for her inner discourse to see itself to a conclusion, still holding up her hands as they came to fully rest within his palms. In the privacy of her office, time past with a languid canter, streaming around them as they took hours to move an inch and speak a single word. “ Thank you again, for coming after me, even while you were injured.”

 

Spock shook his head slowly and lowered it to rest his forehead up against hers. His breath was noticeably warm against her lips in the cool air of the room and smelled faintly of tea. Her eyes slid shut at the scent, triggering memories long forgotten and more likely suppressed by her mind. Nyota clenched and willed herself to settle. Attune to her discord, the Vulcan kissing her hands salved the emotional chaff with a quiet confession.

 

“ I have been foolish.” he started, rubbing more intently at her hands. “ I have spent so much of my life living the way others would have me. Very little of what I have done has ever been for myself, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That being said, when you were held captive, the thought of never again seeing you terrified me.”

 

He paused to swallow down the emotion she felt surging within him and huffed quietly through his nose. “ I witlessly thought my obligations to my people should have me away from those that know me best. I could not deny the lack of peace within me from the thought of my failure to them. My existence drove Nero to their demise-”

 

“ That is not on you, Spock.” she said firmly. His eyes met hers with a look of uncertainty and she shook her head at the expression. “ It is not your fault.”

 

“ No matter where the fault lies, I feel the immense burden of it. In a means to relieve myself of it, I thought to go but I cannot leave. Out of all my many debts, I chose Starfleet and I chose you. I-”

 

“ Spock. You don’t owe me anything. Not like that, never like that. I wa...I _need_ you to be with me because you want to, not because you feel a sense of obligation.” she said earnestly. She tilted her chin and pressed her lips against his as she stood up on her toes.

 

Spock turned his head and kissed her more hungrily than she thought the sentiment warranted, chasing after her mouth as her feet fatigued and lowered back down to the ground. The heat of his hands around hers by now had her palms sweating against the dark glaze of the chipped ceramic pot as his pleasure from her unexpected kiss tingled at her skin. When she was finally able to pull away, Spock’s hooded eyes were staring back at her fervently. Sliding her tongue against the roof of her mouth Nyota could taste the sweet spice of the tea she had smelled from him earlier. “ I’m not trying to trap you in a relationship, Spock. You know that.”

 

He nodded and slowly moved one hand to cup her bare elbow. “ I was punishing myself for my people by denying myself the one thing, the one person, I truly wanted. Please know that.”

 

A painful longing unlike anything Nyota had ever felt came racing towards her like a blow to the chest. She exhaled sharply with a stuttering breath and look back at him with wide eyes of disbelief. Spock looked away towards her door with his brows furrowed and slowly dropped his hands away from her. “ I experience that...emotion every time I think of leaving you for them. I should not find my peace while they fight to claim a small piece of it for themselves but I cannot leave you.”

 

He closed his eyes with his lashes fluttering against the pale skin of his face. “ I cannot leave you, Nyota. I chose you. You give me pause.”

 

Spock turned on his heels and left her standing in her office, clutching the plant which meant far more now to her than it previously did. She stared after his retreating form and her heart resumed its own form of pausing.

 

\------

 

She doesn’t see them moving back in together or resuming most forms of physical intimacy anytime soon but Spock is grateful for every progressive step forward towards the relationship they both want to have.

 

So far things have been kept light and easy, games of chess after hours in the rec and long walks within the memorial garden and ship stock sphere. She admits she was hesitant at his every new suggestion for time spent together but with every successful outing Nyota feels the walls she erected to protect herself steadily eroding away and ushering her trust of Spock back into her life. The changes thereafter had been strikingly curative.

 

There are hours where Spock was remarkably resilient. Not a shadow of himself but the same handsome Vulcan whose dry wit and sensitivity were two of many charms. His eyes smiled easy and his gait returned to its smooth, even strides, without him being the wiser.

 

There were differences in Nyota as well. She found herself quick to laugh and more willing to tease him in the way she knew he enjoyed. Where she thought there would be strife and hardship, taking things slow has left them happier than they could last remember.

 

If they had really given thought to it, their relationship had always been under fire. From the start there had been the threat of being pegged with fraternization while she was still a cadet which later overlapped with Nero and _Val-pak_ ( the destruction of Vulcan/Ah’rak).

 

Understandably Spock had been fraught with depression over his loses but he hadn’t dealt with the grief head on. Still spiraling Nyota fought to get his bereavement under control when Khan came and Admiral Marcus turned the fleet upside down.  

 

Their encounter with Krall actually help to put things more into perspective as to what really mattered to them both. As it had been Spock had sought to atone for sins that weren’t his own by serving New Vulcan in any manner they would have him. Nyota had kept herself composed as he tried gently to engage the discussion with her but her insides had knotted and frozen her mind in place.

 

She needed to know what going to New Vulcan meant for both of them. Did he want to leave her behind or have her forfeit her commission? Was this the most unromantic proposal for marriage or was it the devastating break up that her heart had always feared?

 

She needed to know but she did not _want_ to know. If the truth was that she wasn’t enough, wasn’t Vulcan enough to have their children, wasn’t special enough to wait on their commission before going planetside to start a family, that she wasn’t worth staying with because of all the hassle after everything that they had been through...that would cut her more than Spock could ever know, telepath or not.

 

Nyota had loved him with everything in her and loved him though her heart was reticent to trust him. Spock, in his duality continued to love her as well, with that terrifyingly brilliant maelstrom of emotions but the effects of stress along with mental and emotional fatigued had taken their toll through it all.

 

What she had feared to be their end had turned into a curious new beginning. Shipless and stationside they along with countless others had to pick up the pieces of their life and friendships together. All too often space reminded them of its fickle nature and the small span of their lifetime. The opportunities to listen more, love harder and chase after that gave them purpose was brought into focus.

 

When all was said and done, Nyota wanted him and Spock wanted her and after their talk over the fern she felt strong enough to give it another try. Living aboard the neutral ground of Yorktown, and not Earth or New Vulcan, they were free to rest and recover and finally enjoy themselves.

 

Gratitude did not even begin to cover the thankfulness she bore at ease of her days. She was with him and her with her and she could finally find herself exhaling with a smile.

 

That was until Spock proposed to make dinner at her apartment. She mumbled her agreement as she fidgeted from one foot to the other. Fear of unknown expectations filled her as he eagerly made arrangements to go by the market and make a mix of their favorites dishes that very evening.

 

In the quiet of her living room Nyota anxiously went from preening in the mirror with practiced smiles to rearranging her kitchen utensils. When that wasn’t enough she went to the restroom to relieve herself of the nervous gas plaguing her by popping a chalky chew down her throat and made a quick stop on the toilet.

 

As Nyota reemerged rubbing her freshly washed hands on her dress she groaned to herself. While her body felt better, her mind was still plagued with _what ifs_.

 

Would he ask to stay after dinner and have tea? Suggest a game of chess that ended up going late into the night? Or maybe he would ask to do something more _intimate_ like spending the night?

 

Nyota groaned and cupped her face, sliding her hands around to cover her eyes before cursing herself for smudging her makeup. She half marched, half stumbled into the bathroom looking over her eyeliner with a hiss. Snatching her beauty bag she fished out an eye pencil and a makeup remover pad and went to work repairing her face.

 

As she dabbed the smudge clear of her temple she sighed down at the countertop.

 

She wasn’t ready for sex! She was barely ready for the damned dinner together alone in her quarters! It was hard enough to hold back when his fingers would chance a brush against her own or when he went in to kiss her cheek, not to turn her head and hungrily meet his mouth.

 

Her heart was on the mend and she was just starting to trust Spock with it but having gone so long without him in her bed, Nyota’s body was left with an itch she was fighting very, _very_ hard _not_ to scratch.

 

Just a whiff of him could send her middle fluttering while his deep, sonorous voice saying her name had Nyota eager to wrap her arms around him along with her legs.

 

She growled in feminine frustration at the injustice of it all and heard the pencil snap in her hand. She stare at the ruined stick in wide eyed shock as the sound of the door bell reached her.

 

“ Oh crap!” she whispered loudly, rushing to fix her eye and stuff her makeup back into the small bag. “ _Coming_ !” she yelled over the running water of the faucet. _At least I wish I was..._ she thought glumly.

 

She rushed out, nearly tripping over her automated vacuum and skid to a stop before the door. Smoothing her dress along her sides, Nyota took a deep breath and raised her hand to the door panel.

 

It slid open to reveal Spock looking tall and dapper, with heavy laden bags and changed from his uniform. God he looked so good in black.

 

“ Nyota.” She shivered at the sound of his voice but feigned as if she were cold.

 

“ Spock! Phew it’s cool in here! I didn’t think to turn up the temperature beforehand! I’m sorry. Here let me do that now.” she grinned coyly before turning away from him with a face that spoke of her embarrassment. As she adjusted the thermostat she silently chided herself as she mouth the words _get yourself together woman_.

 

Spock walked in slowly, looking around her home to observe the way she marked it as her own. His eyes came to rest on the Bolian fern, sitting happily in the sill of the window above the kitchen sink. It was recovering rapidly, already four of the ten fiddleheads had unfurled into light violet fronds.

 

A slight hint of a smile teased at the corners of his mouth as he continued his perusal and set the bags down on the countertop. “ I find your decor quite agreeable. Why did you obtain the Betazoid emotive scroll?   


Nyota turned her head to the soothing scene of a Betazoid’s lake majora being stirred by the wind. “ Oh that? A trader came by looking to scalp the visiting families when security threatened to shut him down. I bought this one after arguing for half an hour about the quality of it.”

 

Spock hummed humorously as he unpacked his provisions. “ I take it the trader was Tellerite?”

 

Nyota laughed along with him and ran her hand over her hair. She huffed as she felt a finger become snagged in a tangle midway down. She yanked it free with a wince and saw Spock staring after her.

 

She smiled sheepishly and answered him with forced laughter. “ One in the same! I did get to argue another painting out of him though and they were both totally worth it.”

 

Spock nodded and went back to looking at the food while Nyota sighed, sagging her shoulders. Pulling the cabinet open, Spock pulled out a cutting board and colander and went to work prepping the vegetables as he did on night’s long past.

 

With a quick glance of the selection she figured that he had settled on zucchini lasagna for her and Plomeek soup for himself. She also caught sight of the small bar of chocolate and the bottle of Saurian brandy. She tried not to read anything into their presence other than their enjoyment but so often had they diverged into other activities after consuming said items.

 

“ Would you please set the oven to 449.8 degrees Kelvin and set a pot on the stove to boil?” he asked. The words moved so casually from his mouth that Nyota was struck with a strange sense of deja vu. How many times had they made dinner like this? Ate and drank and then talked over dishes being washed? Countless time to her recollection but for him she knew he could spit out the exact amount to the very dishes they ate if given enough time to meditate on the expansive banks of his memory.

 

Nyota moved to do as he asked, shaking off the feeling of nostalgia as she retrieve a pot and filled it with water next to where he stood. As she waited, Nyota felt his eyes running over her dress. She glanced away from the faucet to his face but he was already back to mashing the massive, fleshy pods of plomeek in a bowl with the rest of the vegetables. “ I do not recall seeing this particular dress.”

 

She left the sink to turn itself off automatically and set the controls for both the stove top and oven. “ It’s new.”

 

He hummed thoughtful and she felt his eyes assessing her once more as she bent at the waist and fetched the lasagna pan from the drawer below the oven range. “ Its color is quite appealing.”

 

She scoffed and set the pan down beside him as he sliced the squash in his hand lengthwise. “ Are you sure it’s the color you find appealing?”

 

He flinched with a hiss and cradled his hand to his chest. Nyota gasped and cursed under her breath as she noted the dark green liquid trailing down his fingers. “ Ugh Spock, what are you doing?!”

 

He stared down blankly at his bleeding hand and back up to her angry face. “ Apparently I am finding your dress color far too appealing to give my task due diligence.”

 

She blew a raspberry from her pursed lips as she grabbed the nearest dishcloth and jammed it around his hand. “ Far too appealing indeed. Hold this.”

 

“ It will pass.” he assured her but did as he was told. She hurried to her bathroom and rummaged around the cabinets there, giving a quick noise of success as she palmed a roll of gauze in her hand and ran back to him. “ Okay you fashion-loving lecher, lemme see what you did.”

 

He opened his mouth to protest to her teasing when he snapped it shut and extended his towel wrapped hand towards her. Nyota nabbed it by the cloth and carefully revealed his finger. He would notice that she was avoiding touching his skin but she didn’t want him to know how anxious she was and the reasons why. Tilting his hand back Nyota could see the small angled nick that he had cut into it. “ It’s not that bad. It’s just a gusher.”

 

“ It is really no trouble at all. I was merely caught off guard.” he groused as she moved him over towards the sink and washed his hand.

 

She shushed him and playfully bumped her hip against his. “ You’re just being all stubborn because you hate being nursed.”

 

“ It is a small cut, not a gusher as you so eloquently put it.” he said sourly, making her laugh at his wounded pride.

 

“ I don’t care what you say Spock- _kam_ , you are _NOT_ bleeding all over our food.” she smirked. His eyelids fluttered rapidly before stilling on her face.

 

He was quiet afterwards as she scratching the end of the gauze free and began to wrap it around his index finger. After she was nearly done before the silence started to unnerve her. “ something on your mind?”

 

“ It has been over two standard years since you last referred to me by the diminutive suffix _kam_.” he said evenly. She coughed and gave a halfhearted shrug to her shoulders. “ What? Just over two standard years? Not months, days and minutes?” Nyota asked, deflecting.

 

She felt his fingers twitch within the dishrag, no doubt itching to get a hold of her mind and thoughts. As much as she could she kept her mind vague for that very reason. She did not feel like sharing at the moment.

 

A smile pulled lightly at the corners of Spock’s mouth as he tilted his head towards her. “ Would you care for that information? I could do so now if you wish? Perhaps you were also like to hear of the last time you referred to me as a ‘smart ass’? That would be far more easy to calculate as not much time has passed in you saying so.”

 

Nyota snorted as she carefully tore the roll away with her teeth and smoothed the edge to bind to the rest of the wrap. He waited patiently as she inspected her work, blinking like a contented cat in the lap of its owner when she finally released his hand. “ There all done.” she cheered, placing the dishcloth in the kitchen’s refresher.

 

Spock lifted his hand with a twist and hummed thoughtfully. “ I am still experiencing a great deal of pain.”

 

“ Oh _really_?” she mocked, huffing through her nose with a smile.

 

Spock nodded sagely and extended his hand back in her direction. “ I require further medical attention.”

 

Nyota took his hand between her own and smirked at his antics. “ And what kind of medical attention do you require.”

 

“ I believe a kiss is the standard form of treatment for this type of injury.” he answered innocently.

 

“ I thought it was merely a small cut?” she retorted still holding his hand.

 

“ I am half human. A thorough regimen of affection is needed to make this cut, however small, _all better_.” he quipped earnestly, pushing his hand towards her.

 

Nyota giggled with a low groan of amusement, holding his approaching hand at bay. “ I can’t believe the things you get away with saying sometimes if you ‘don’t lie’.”

 

She bent her face towards his finger, looking up towards his face as he looked on with indifference she knew to be far from the truth. “ You know this is unsanitary, right?”

 

“ No medicine is without its risk.” he said as if she were an actual nurse practitioner. She scoffed again and continued on.

 

Puckering her lips, Nyota planted a chaste kiss to the tip of his finger that was left exposed to the elements. At the touch press of her lips, Spock inhaled above her as if he had forgotten to breath.

 

Nyota lifted her head and gave him an incredulous look as she took in the rakish expression of his gaze. “ Wait. Did I just do something dirty instead of sweet to you?”

 

His mouth moved awkwardly as he sought out another rebuttal. “ There are a variety of interpretations for the act. I assure you that the kiss you administered was purely medicinal.”

 

“ Yeah, from _my_ end you pervert.” she mumbled pushing away his hand.

 

Nyota stepped over to her left and turned down the water on the stovetop. Spock came up behind her but kept his hands to himself as she did so, studying her body language as best he could. “ I am sorry if I offended you. I was not expecting to be so...affected.”

 

Nyota rolled her eyes and licked her lips as she folded her arms in front of her. “ Whatever, Spock.”

 

He came to her side and looked about the room in clear agitation. He ran his tongue quickly over the tip of his upper lip and slowly began to explain himself. “ I felt you...as you kissed me. I was not prepared for what transferred between us.”

 

Nyota swallowed nervously and as she stared down at the boiling water. “ What exactly did you feel?”

 

Spock shifted and reached over to grab the bowl of mashed vegetables and slowly feed them into the rolling water. “ It seems that we are of a similar emotional state.” he answered, being evasive.

 

“ You horny too?” she cackled, turning her head away. She didn’t see him rubbing at the stubble along his jaw to try and hide his own embarrassment. “ In a word, yes, you could call me amorous. Nervous as well.”

 

Nyota watched the plomeek turn the water into a thick, purple sludge as it dispersed within the pot. Coming back to herself, she moved to the cabinet to spice the soup. Plomeek in itself was quite salty but very bland otherwise. She moved a few bottles around and pulled out a fresh ginger root as she knew Spock preferred his dressed with.

 

“ What are you nervous about?” she asked, peeling the spicy tuber.

 

He turned his back and went back to the countertop near the neglected lasagna, preparing the green squash for layering. She heard him pop open the jar of marinara along with the tubs of cheeses.

 

“ I am worried.” he said quietly.

 

“ Me too.” she confessed, still fixing up the root. The sweet scent of it filled the air and calmed her stomach more than her previous trip to the bathroom.

 

“ May I inquire as to what exactly?” he asked, pausing over his task.

 

Nyota grabbed the grater and ran the small cube of ginger over its surface above the pot. She bit her lip and confessed what she’d rather not say. “ I’m not ready to have sex...despite what you felt.”

 

“ I sensed that as well. I assumed the juxtaposing desire for physical distance was a means of securing your emotional integrity.” he nodded with his back still to her.

 

“ Meaning…?”

 

“ Meaning you did not want to act on impulse.” He clarified. He was stacking the ingredients in the pan now with a little more attention than was necessary. He was probably talking more about himself than he was about her or rather he felt more burdened than she did to keep his distance.

 

Nyota took a deep breath and walked over to stand beside him as he assembled the lasagna. Putting her backside against the counter, she hooked her hands along the edge and watched him delicate spread the ricotta and mozzarella along the zucchini slices with a butter knife.

 

“ What are you worried about Spock?” she asked, toeing at the kitchen tile.

 

His hands paused in their work and hovered over the pan before he withdrew them and planted both palm down on the counter’s surface.

 

“ I am concerned…” he croaked before pausing to neatly clear his throat. “ I am concerned over making a regrettable gaffe as we take time to repair our association.”

 

Nyota sighed with a humorless smile as she tilted her head back towards the ceiling. A single bead of sweat rolled down her neck as she thought over his answer. “ You’re worried about making a mistake while we’re reconciling…”

 

“ It is not something I can kiss and make all better.” he said solemnly.

 

Nyota took in his crestfallen features and leaned in with her shoulder. “ Hey, don’t shut down on me. It’s okay, everything will be okay.”

 

“ How can you be so certain?” he asked dolefully looking down at his bandaged finger. Nyota pushed her hair over her shoulder to keep it from spilling into the loaded pan below and rested her head against his arm. At this angle she couldn’t see him but she knew he would take comfort in her choice to touch him. She heard him exhale and inhale with a vibrating rumble, deep within his throat. Yes, he very much liked that.

 

“ We’re both scared but we’re also being proactive about it. The fear of hurting each other and our relationship is making us careful.”

 

“ Accept others with careful hands.” Spock recited, quoting half of a Surak tenant with a firm nod. In spite of the heat of the kitchen and the growing warmth of the heater, Nyota turned her full body to embrace him. Spock eagerly spun around to greet her, gathering her up in his arms and nuzzling her face with a whiny hum. “ Nyota.”

 

She reached up to ruffle his hair, ignoring his irritated huff as she did so and threaded her fingers through the thick strands. “ Worrying about what ifs will get us nowhere but stressed out.”

 

She brushed over a spot behind his ear and felt him curl into the touch and press against her hand. “ It is indeed illogical to worry.” he drawled sleepily, turning his head as she scratched at his scalp.

 

“ We just need to focus on us and take it one day at a time. Just focus on the present.”

 

He grunted in agreement, his eyes now closed as she continued to fondly stroke his hair. “ Very sound judgement, given our plomeek soup.”

 

“ Huh?” She paused her fingers.

 

“ It is burning at present.” He replied somewhat amused.

 

Nyota whipped her head around and clamored down out of his embrace with a curse. “ Dammit!” she shouted, turning off the eye and stirring the pot.

 

She groaned, feeling the spoon grate against the vegetables caked down at the bottom. The rest of the soup that did move looked more like toxic waste from the warp conduits than it resembled food. It burbled up at her face with a wet, smokey pop and undulated from the heat trapped inside its mass.

 

“ I don’t know if I can save this.” she confessed, spooning at the goop.

 

Spock looked over her shoulder and blinked down at the now indigo colored slime with his eyebrows lifting towards his fringe. “ I will admit that I am not eager to see if it can be salvaged.”

 

Nyota turned around to the half assembled lasagna and back to the pot of ruined soup. “ Order out?”

 

Spock gave her a nod and pulled her forward with a hand at her waist. “ I think that would be preferable. Rigelian?”

 

Nyota rested along his chest as Spock ran a hand leisurely up and down her back. “ _Happy stomach_.” she agreed in common class Rigelian.

  
“ _Happy heart_.” he replied with the customary comeback. As she went in for another kiss, Spock met her halfway, feeling the last of their anxiety burn away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Spock doing a decent job at reconciling or does he need to grovel a bit more ;D bawahaha. Like Nyota having nervous toots? I told AdelphaHighbrow about Nyota's plant in TOS that I was in love with which is why that plant made it into this fic. Hmm and in my head cannon I think when they're not at work Ny and Spock are highly distracting to each other and they end up being horrible at domestic life because they're constantly staring at each other like 'how the hell are you so fine?!' Anyways Imma go disappear with BTSs now.


	3. On stage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cute fluff ish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you

Nyota fixed her jaw to the side and sighed down at her cooling drink. She went to the longue for company and a distraction but found neither. 

The small den was bustling with action. Crew meet ups, awkward first dates and mediocre acts monopolizing the stage, kept the atmosphere loud and lively but did nothing to stop her brooding.

He was doing it again, that annoying tick of his. Instead of meeting a problem he had head on, Spock would throw himself into extracurricular ship tasking. Nero and Khan had given him no shortage of work activities to undertake on the Enterprise’s reconstructions. The same proved to be true with Krall as the ship had to yet again be made over.

“ He loves that damn sensor array more than life itself.” she grumbled into her tea mug, ignoring the Andorian who was currently murdering I will always love you in drunken, stilted standard. 

Karaoke night was the best thing to happen to this place for the bar’s business but the worse thing to happen to her ears since being stationed onto the Yorktown. Having pitch perfect hearing definitely had its disadvantages.

She winced as the crooning alien approached the bridge of the song, going for volume rather than tone quality as he belted the verse so loudly that a number of patrons around Nyota groaned and covered their ears. 

Nyota bit her lip until the worse of the high notes were over before clapping politely along with the rest of the crowd. The Andorian security personnel bowed graciously and reclaimed his seat with his equally inebriated date. She looked away as he or she,...Nyota couldn’t be sure, gave the singer a thorough, thankful kiss. 

As...stomach churning as the display was she wished that Spock had that same sort of flame for her. If Spock gave her even half the attention he gave the chief science officer’s station, Nyota she would be the happiest woman in the universe! 

She wasn’t striving for that happiest though, being happy and secure would do just fine. She wasn’t looking to compete with the sensor array, the ship’s reconstruction or New Vulcan for that matter. What she wanted was to be special and singular to Spock all on her own and not simply when he had to save her life or thought to be around her.

Nyota uncrossed and recrossed her legs on the barstool and chided herself for still mooning after him. Bouncing her feet in the air as she eyed the toe of her boot Nyota could hardly blame herself though. They had been making great progress together and it was to the point that she was nearly ready to have that conversation; the one where they discussed New Vulcan and all the details there in. 

A PADD dedicated to researching the planet and its conservation efforts sat on her nightstand, keeping her company as she poured over everything she could get her hands on. She had a plan to propose but she never suggested anything without a good foundation of understand to back her. 

There was also the aspect of their physical relationship but admittedly Nyota was holding off on it because she feared finding herself in her present situation of nursing a hot chai in a bar like some teetotaler out for a good time. She didn’t want to give him that part of her and feel once again taken for granted. It was enough she had her heart out on loan to him.

Still staring down dejectedly at her foot, Nyota didn’t notice the next act coming up on stage or the hushed murmurs the crowded bar were hurriedly whispering to each other, until a very deep and very familiar voice spoke into the mic and made the hair on the back of her neck rise up on end. 

“ Good evening.” he said nonchalantly, taking a seat on the chair propped up on the stage for any acts requiring it. The crowd answered back excitedly, wondering what good luck they had come across to have a Vulcan and a commander at that, take the stage.

“ Do you take any request?” a woman slurred loudly from the back.

“ No.” he said with a slight lift of his brow, setting the audience into a teetering fit of laughter. 

“ Oh God...what is he doing?!” Nyota whispered aloud, trying and failing to disappear where she sat. As if sensing her anxious presence, Spock’s eyes found hers and held her gaze as he nimbly went to tuning his lyre. “ I have been told it is an Terran custom in many cultures that one serenades another when they wish to express their affection.”

Nyota’s stare went wide as she took in what he was about to do. Or at least what she thought. Someone else in the bar must have been thinking along the same lines as they hollered up towards Spock with her speculation. “ You’re going to sing?”

“ No.” Spock answered with the same deadpan expression as before, much to their amusement. “ I am however going to play an accompaniment to the one that holds my affection.”

Many of those awed while others clapped in support as Spock dipped his head towards her. “ Nyota, if you would please join me in a duet.”

Oh god oh god oh god I am NOT here for this she chanted as the crowd grew louder and cheered her up onto the stage. Once she reached him, she glared at Spock and spoke none too quietly. “ I’m going to kill you.”

Spock merely cocked the corner of his mouth up in a crooked smile and gave his ka'athyra an experimental strum. “ With so many witnesses?”

\------------

 

“ I need your signature.” she said plopping down the PADD on his desk. 

“ What is this?” he asked picking it up for inspection.

He was already reading it over as she began to explain. “ It’s temporary transfer papers for us to deploy to New Vulcan for aid and conservation.”

Spock’s face snapped up in surprise as he paused in his reading. His eyes darted across her face as he swallowed down some emotion that she couldn’t identify. “ You...wish for us to go to New Vulcan?”

Nyota smiled and took a seat across from him as Spock continued to give her that puzzling expression. 

“ Yes, I do. It’s just for two weeks, if it’s approved. We’ll be assigned bio studies of the planet’s flora and fauna at best but most likely because everyone wants to do that we’ll get our second or third suggested position of aid disbursement or generator construction.”

Spock blinked down to the PADD and back to her face. “ I find myself at a lost for what to say.” he admitted.

Nyota smiled softly and gave a playfully shrug. “ Say whatever you need to. Say whatever you’re thinking or feeling. I want to talk to you about it. It’s not a done deal until we agree and signed it after you’ve combed over my paperwork with that fine tooth comb of yours anyways.”

Spock tilted his head and narrowed his eyes a bit. “ Are you insinuated that I am overly fastidious in my proofreading and copyediting.”

Nyota smiled coyly from the other side of the desk to which Spock huffed softly through his nose at her teasing. “ One of us has to be…” he jabbed back and her surprised laugh broke some of the tension between them. His humor while dry was very much present and playful.

Nyota bit at her lip and spread out her hands in front of her as she spoke more on the proposal. “ If we went, we could consider it a trial run for more charity work there and other places when we receive shoreleave. We could also think about it as a look to the future...where we might want to live when we’re not on active duty.

Spock nodded and she continued slowly on.

“ I am able to think about what’s best for you when you take time to think about what’s best for me. You staying here away from your people when I know you feel compelled to be there isn’t what’s best. On the same note, your freeing me to seemingly do whatever I want while you let some stranger or relative what you have to do is not what’s best for me.”

She leaned forward in the chair and took a hold of his hand. “ I want you. I don’t want to be without you.”

“ Nor I without you, Nyota but I felt that this burden was not yours to bear.”

She shook her head solemnly and gives his hand a squeeze. “ If we’re together, that’s just a part of being a team. We’re only as strong as the other and being away from New Vulcan reconstruction has weakened you.”

Spock’s shoulders drooped slightly and Nyota tries hard to send him reassurance through her hand on his. 

“ Look, I’ve thought about it, been thinking about it, what if it was Earth that was destroyed instead of Vulcan? How would I feel if there were ten thousand of us left to put everything back together on a strange, new place? How every scrap left of Earth would be more precious to me than latinum and how every baby would be one more reassurance that my existence means something and my people continuing on matters.”

A flare of emotion singed her hand as sorrow, connection and gratitude welled within him. Spock stayed silent but within Nyota could feel the sharp edge of the tempest warring inside him. She squeezed his hand and caught his gaze for what she had to say next. “ There would be a lot of things I would what to do for the preservation of Earth culture and humanity, lots of myself that I would sacrifice but giving up the man I want to be my husband so I can have full blooded human babies wouldn’t even be on the list.”

Spock swallowed roughly and looked down with his guilt and remorse burning sharply at her hand. She held it to her mouth and lightly kissed the back of it. Cradling his hand to her face, Nyota leaned into it coughed to clear the emotion burning at her throat. “ I love you and even if I were the last woman alive, I would still want you to be the father of any children I had. It doesn’t matter how little human or how much Vulcan you are, you’re all mine Spock.”

The Vulcan in question sighed softly as his eyes slid shut. The hand she placed at her face was tugging gently at her mind, wishing to share his thoughts. Nyota nodded her head and obliged him by guiding his hand along her face.

She blinked and opened her eyes to a body too large and foreign to be her own. The colors around her were heavily saturated and the gravity was so light it felt like she my float away. Spock’s perspective she thought idly as she saw herself in the strange spectrum light Vulcans perceived. 

The vision of herself was smiling up at her. She was happy because they had formal bonded. He was more in her mind than he had ever been and immensely pleased to be there. As a newly bonded couple they had been called to the fulfill the population initiative and raise offspring on New Vulcan. The vision of her reluctantly agreed because she was loved Spock to a fault in this regard. 

She bedded the vision with less enjoyment than would be had if either one had been ready for parenthood. Once with child there was one small measure of joy in that they were growing as a family but then new trouble was on the horizon. 

She blinked once more and the scenery before her changed into the lush desert of New Vulcan. She was at her side, frowning at the land before them. Nyota spoke up at herself, complaining of the heat even as her loneliness for human companionship beat at her from within the bond.

The physicians’ visits were grueling as the gravity’s weight upon her. Her wife was unhappy. Every appointment was bravely met but ended with tears as the doctor’s told her in not so many words how she was unfit to bear Vulcan offspring. This pained him in more ways than one. 

Prejudice for towards her biology and alien nature was heaped upon her by those who knew nothing of her. Feelings of rage and empathy were brought up on her behalf because in her eyes, or rather his, she was absolutely perfect. She could not argue her emotional affinity as logic but she tried her best, not letting any slight towards her wife go unchallenged but still her Nyota’s confidence wanned.

Conditions on the planet, while perfect for himself, were tolerable but uncomfortable for his bondmate. Pregnancy further complicated matters as she often times grew overheated and fainted from her condition. 

Another blink had a vision of Nyota with two kid playing algebraic games with her make up on the walls as she groaned in exasperation. She loved her family but she longed for the days of being host to a number of people who appreciated her. She missed working at her station, she resented the Vulcans who deemed their family untouchable and she grew more bitter as arrangements for their children’s bonding could not be found. Even more her bondmate, Nyota was drifting away from her. She longed for the life she once had too and it was all because of her that she was unhappy. She had asked her for so much but had little to nothing to return the favor. 

“ I hate you, Spock.” the angry vision of herself said up at her face. “ I hate you!”

She blinked once more and they were back again in his office with Spock withdrawing his hand with a slight frown to his face. Nyota rubbed into the sockets of her eyes with her hand and exhaled with a chuff. “ You certainly have a morbid imagination.”

“ I have rarely been viewed as an optimist.” he replied evenly, waiting for her to pick over his thoughts.

Nyota stood and brought her chair around to his side of the desk. She sat herself heavily into its seat and exhaled once more. “ Spock, none of that you imagined was real.” 

“ It has a distinct possibility of being reality if we were to officially bond.” he rebutted. He was irritated but not at her. Thoughts of her displeased with him worried Spock immensely. His hands fidgeted slightly in his lap until she caught and stilled them. “ It would have a possibility if we allowed it to happen. Tell me Spock, what do you want?”

“ I want to be with you. I want to bond with you.” he started timidly. “ I would also be agreeable to having a child or children.”

“ Ok good, I want those things too.” she agreed soothingly, rubbing her palm over the back of his hands. “ I very much want those.”

“ I also want to remain a part of Starfleet and have the same for you as well.” he said, staring down at the floor. “ We have our commission. We both have been offered a position at the academy at the mission’s end at the very least.”

“ Hmm.” Nyota hummed mildly with a nod of her head. “ Who said when any and all of these things had to happen?”

His head perked up as his eyes snapped up towards her in curiosity. “ Clarify?”

Nyota smiled and lovingly patted his leg. “ You are the most pious man I know when it comes to your commission as a starfleet officer and the Vulcan way. I find it admirable and extremely irritating at times.” she chuckled.

Spock gave a slight tilt of his head and a quick lift of his eyebrow. “ I hope you find me to be the former at the moment.”

She snorted and pushed him in jest on his shoulder. His body stayed firmly in place. “ Spock did it ever occur to you that you should talk to me about our future?”

“ I have tried before to discuss the matter.” he huffed defensively as she scoffed at him. 

“ No you didn’t.”

“ I have. I began to before we initially docked here at the Yorktown.”

Nyota shook her head and put her hands in the air. She splayed her fingers out to tick off her points one at a time with the opposing index finger. “ You didn’t lead off with hey I want to stay in Starfleet. You didn’t say I would love to get married to you! You didn’t come out with Nyota you make me the happiest Vulcan alive but I feel guilty because I’m one of the few Vulcans who are alive and I shouldn’t be happy according to depression. And you definitely made it clear that you were going to leave and possibly have kids so how the hell was I supposed to read any of the other stuff out of what you told me?!”

Spock huffed at her as he opened his mouth to refute her claims but snapped it back shut with an angry click of his teeth. “ I do not like it when you are so logical.”

She smiled and hummed towards face with a cat with the canary grin. “ You do though. You find it hot.”

“ What I find ‘hot’ is not currently up for discussion.” he pouted, amusingly. God, pouty Vulcans were so cute. Who knew an indigent alien could be so adorable?

“ Com’ere.” she crooned and Spock leaned into her with a growly snort. “ You’re right, we’re not discussing your turn ons but we are talking about how you’re going to stop making unilateral decisions.”

“ It was not my intent to leave you out of the matter. You left our quarters midway through and we docked shortly thereafter.” he hummed along her shoulder. From the way he was sniffing her hair and rolling his head against her, made it seem like he was taking their physical ‘break’ pretty hard. She pitied him. Somewhat.

Lifting the heavy strands of his bang, Nyota wetly kissed at his forehead. His brow moved beneath her lips as she placed another between them. “ Spock, when were you thinking about bonding to me formally?” 

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as she watched him consider how to answer her. “ Soon.”

“ How soon is soon?” she questioned. He wasn’t normally so evasive. The male could give her times down to the second and here he comes out with soon? 

She could feel him counting within his head, time spent in her company as well as Vulcan years versus standard Terran ones. “ Within two standard years.” 

She hummed happily at the vague but somewhat clearer answer and kissed below his eye. His lashes kissed her back as he blinked involuntarily at the touch. “ See that’s not so hard!” she teased him, as he sat stiffly in his chair. “ Why are you so serious?”

Spock licked at his lips and shifted again. “ We do not speak of it.”

“ Oh God, this is something Vulcany, isn’t it?” she groaned, flopping back against her chair with whine.

“ I do not know what you mean by ‘ Vulcany’ but it does pertain to the ways of the V’tosh.” Spock sitting upright.

Oh no he’s getting his lecture mode ready she thought drearily as he gave her his full attention. Before he went on for half an hour as to why he couldn’t tell her what he wanted to tell her Nyota cut him off. “ Look does this ‘thing’ you all don’t talk about change anything about us other than becoming bonded by marriage?”

Spock blinked, thinking over her question as if it were written in the air. “ By its definition no. By tradition it is used to determine the time in which we are married. We are after all already bonded.”

Nyota smiled at his matter of fact behavior about their status and scratched under his chin. He hated it as much as it loved it, taking a hold of her wrist but allowing her to continue all the same. “ Then why all the smoke and mirrors? If it’s just a wedding tradition, then why not save it for the day?”

Spock’s eyes darted back and forth across the room as he fitfully sought to answer her. “ To not know of its implications would be jarring for you…”

“ What then? Am I going to be put on the spot to sing?” she joked, trying to lighten the mood with memories of days before.

“ No, it is something...it is shameful for V’tosh...we do not speak of it.” 

Nyota rolled her eyes threw up her hands in defeat. “ Okay I need to know about this things about Vulcans for whatever reason even though you are telling me no Vulcans speak of it. Great because that makes sense.”

“ I do not hesitant to be difficult Nyota. It is a matter that I myself find highly disturbing.” he said in sincerity. “ I wish for you to know but I…”

As he bowed his head Nyota grabbed his shoulders and lowered her head to be level with his. “ Ok, sweetie, if you can’t talk about it why not write it out? And then once I’ve read it, you can delete it? Shoot you can burn the PADD for all I care just as long as we’re not keeping secrets that ought not to be secret.”

Spock looked as if he might protest further when shook his head and retrieved a PADD from his desk. Nyota leaned back in her chair as his fingers danced across its surface, typing rapidly as he could. He spent a few more minutes reviewing his work before he edited and revised it to his liking.

When Spock extended it for her review, Nyota smiled and readily set into reading it. The first few seconds he watched her read skim over the sentences with no changes in her expressions. As Nyota drew closer to the second paragraph however, her eyes had grown as round as satellite dishes. By the third paragraph, her jaw dropped and she gasped in surprise. “ Oh. Ohh...OH! Oh my God!”

Spock sat nervously in her seat as she reread the last three statements before continuing on. At the fourth paragraph she laughed and shook her head at him, pointing down at the sentence below. “ No…” she said in disbelief.

“ Yes.” he nodded, earnestly.

“ Naw.” she replied.

“ Most assuredly.”

“ What? Really? Death though? Did some virgin male make this up to finally get laid?”

Spock sighed and made an oddly human gesture of running his fingers through his hair. “ Would you believe me to fabricate such a ridiculous story or jest about such private matters?”

“ You’re right.” she said looking back down at the PADD. She nibbled at her lip and shrugged as she felt his eyes still studying her for whatever conclusion she would make. “ Well, maybe it will be fun?”

His brows furrowed and he tilted his head in dismay. “ I would hardly consider madness to be ‘fun’, Nyota.”

She made a face and scratched at her scalp while glancing towards the window. He wiggled forward on his seat, watching her every move like an anxiety ridden puppy. “ You would still bond with me knowing this?”

Nyota rolled her eyes and gave him a radiant grin. “ Baby, I’d still bond with you if went crazy every week. I would just think that I’m married to a Klingon instead of a sensible Vulcan gentleman.”

Spock smiled lightly and extended two fingers towards her own. She eagerly met them and he sighed softly in relief. “ You truly do not mind.”

“ No, you nut, I don’t. I love you.” she smiled, curling her fingers around his. “ Just...don’t be so sure that whatever problems we encounter would be too large for us to overcome. I want to be with you, I’ve been with you for over 5 years and while they haven’t all been sunshine and lollipops, we made it through the rain, still in love and still together.”

He blinked down at her and gave her a curious look. 

“What’s that about?” she asked warily, uneasy about the smile tugging at his lips. 

“ I am gladden to have gained your consent in our relationship in this regard as I have been struck with madness at this very moment…”

“ Spock, what the...Wahh!”

“ Computer lock door.” he ordered as he lifted her up by the waist and set her neatly on top of his desk. “ I mustn’t be seen in my condition.” he mumbled, nibbling at her neck. 

Nyota pushed her hands against his questing mouth and giggled loudly. “ Oh my God, stop it!” 

His fingers went to her hair and drew her in for a kiss she had years ago once thought beyond Vulcan logic to do so. He groaned into her mouth and pull her along his long frame. She laughed against his lips as his amusement tickled at her side threw her arms around his neck. It seemed that if all the would do was kiss, Spock was going to make it a very frequent and very thorough activity.

He drew away with a sleepy looking smirk and murmured against her lips. “ I have wanted to kiss you thusly since you entered 17 minutes earlier.” 

Nyoa playfully tugged at his hair which rewarded her with Spock jokingly snapping his teeth at her with a chuff. “ My goodness, the madness brought on all this? What ever will I do? My alien boyfriend’s gone berserk!” she quailed mockingly.

She faked swooned inside the band of his arms as he pulled her closer with a sinister sounding snarl. Oh he was really feeling amorous she thought mirthfully as she felt his fingers tracing where his eyes were lingering. 

She remained looking fainted until he left a ticklish trail down the side of her neck which set her off into a fit of giggling. “ I believe you mean alien fiance.” he amended to her amusement. 

“ If you’re correcting me, you can’t be all that crazy.” she chuckled as he nipped at her hands pushing him steadily away.

“ Must I show you how delirious I am with you?” he intoned, with his hands at her waist. His fingers were moving in such a way that if there were not cloth between him and her skin, she was sure she would be the one going mad. He liked touching her and he brooked no arguments in letting her feel just how much.

Nyota puckered her lips to the side and looked off to the other, humming as she thought about it. “ Hmmm, maybe.” she hummed tilting her head towards him with a knowing wink.

A lascivious look of mischief flashed over his face as Spock raised a hand between them. “ That can be arranged.” he whispered hoarsely, placing his fingers along her face. “ Before I start however...thank you.”

Nyota’s eyebrows buckled towards the middle as his face came close once again with a chaste kiss to her cheek. “ Thank you for what?”

“ For everything.” he rasped. The buzzing tingle his fingers left on her face expanded and she gasped against him as he took her mind as only a Vulcan lover would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good night


	4. Stay the night and hold me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spock and Nyota make their way to New Vulcan to do relief work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never said but I think that I should that this is more of a drabble fic than a story one. I'm also practicing writing in present tense hence the changes here and there. Yes I know I'm the flipping worse.

It’s during their first tour of New Vulcan that she finally lets him to sleep over.

 

Their application for aid relief and research took only two Yorktown days to be received, authorized and processed, which for most any posting is unheard of.

 

She thinks the Ambassador might have had something to do with it, seeing as it was his son who was applying but went with the flow and packed her meager belongings without a fuss about the suddenness of their departure.

 

With her fern sitting neatly in the officers’ lounge with a list of strict instructions as to its care, Nyota left for the shuttle nexus and boarded alongside her enigmatic companion.

 

Leaving the station went easy enough, they barely had anything to pack and with the rest of the crew seen as auxiliary staff their positions on the space station were readily and eagerly filled by bored officers tired of idling in the wings.

 

The warp 4 capable Vulcan survey ship they’re assigned to ride over has its pros and cons. At warp 4 it will take them a little over 13 hours to reach the planet’s gravity well and unlike the Enterprise there’s not anything for either of them to readily do.

 

On the other hand, the _V’tosh_ made vessel is fitted more like a commercial starship than a military freighter or starfleet model so its accommodations for the multi-hour voyager lend itself towards creature comforts and leisurely pastimes.

 

Spock sat buckled for most of the voyage beside her, playing numeric puzzlers on his PADD, under the poor guise of reading while she caught up on her favorite sitcoms, leaning heavily against his shoulder.

 

When she gazed up to find a number of Vulcan eyes upon her, Nyota quietly clears her throat and starts to sit up, to show a bit more of decorum for their social mores. So when Spock’s large hand caught her by the shoulder and placed her back against him, she couldn’t help the smile that came to her lips at his clear insistence that she stay where she was.

 

As they disembarked with their luggage thrown over his shoulder, they were met with a flitter and carted away to the base where the New Vulcan council was conducting its relief operations.

 

She half expects Sarek to greet them there at the entrance but when they escort them past the office to their adjoining room assignments, Nyota is both relieved and disappointed. While she and Spock have had their ups and downs, after meeting Sarek on that terrible day where he lost so much, the stoic, silver fox had become a good, if not close acquaintance.  

 

The walk down the hallway was quiet and boring from the bare walls but it’s a welcome distraction from the nervous tension she feels building between them as they near their lodgings. They approach the doors on the left, matte silver against a sickly looking yellow of the wall surrounding it and Nyota takes the first one they came across.

 

After she registers her voice signature and hand with the door, Spock follows her inside and places her bag by the doorway. He stood awkwardly with his own bag in hand, his eyes darting everywhere but where she stood near the entryway. Nyota didn’t need their bondlink to know he wished to room with her but it was better to reinforce this boundary before he started testing others.

 

Crossing over the floor, Nyota took a hold of his shoulder and with a kiss on the cheek she thanked him and wished him a good night.

 

To his credit, Spock took it all in stride though his eyes lingered on her as he bid her to rest well. And to her amazement she does.

 

Something about finally being here on New Vulcan with him, being able to get into the work Spock wishes to do for his people, eases her fears about his health and their relationship. The knowledge of it along with the heavy gravity send her soundly to sleep.

 

In the morning, Spock chimes her door alert two beats before her alarm goes off and she lets him in as she gets ready for the day.

 

As she showered, the notion that Spock was meditating just a few feet away in her efficiency’s main room, tickled Nyota into a smile. Once she was dressed carefully for the heat and the terrain, Spock walks her to the relief office’s headquarters for the details of their assignment. Either by luck or bureaucratic blessing, they managed to get their first pick of biological survey.

 

Nyota would have been just as well with an engineering task or better yet supply distribution where she would have gotten a chance to practice her _Vulkansu_ with someone who wasn’t Spock or a delegate, but she knew that Spock would be elated at the change of discovering new and unknown creatures.

 

They head out on a modified flitter into the charted but undocumented lands surrounding three of the new by settlements. Nyota scouts alongside the Vulcan’s watchful eye and together they pick apart the world around them with sample bags and holovid recordings.

 

A rhythm is established and she doesn’t feel the need to question the how or why. She knows he’s getting better, can see not only the ‘old’ Spock coming into view but a version of himself that she believes not many have witnessed before. With child like fascination, the young commander shows her everything of interest he comes across, with wide eyes and his mouth curling into the occasional muted smile. His limp is a mere memory of weeks past as he slinks about the rocks like a big cat on the prowl, that is if a snow leopard or jaguar were to hunt for scientific data.

 

Day after day, they repeat the motions of the one before and each day Spock comes back renewed. Climbing and walking out in the heat under the heavier gravity of the new world has them sore but strong. By the end of their mission she thinks they would have melted away all the softness they gained on the Enterprise under the hot suns’ attention.

 

\-------------------

 

At the end of the week, Spock has taken to meditating outside. Nyota watches her Vulcan sit quietly with his legs folded beneath him as he stills himself in light of the setting suns. From her vantage point at the window, he looks regal and elegant, dressed as richly as he is but it’s the peace that he radiates in middle of his meditation that Nyota finds most alluring. So when he asks to join her in late night game of chess, Nyota gladly takes him up on it.

 

Once a boisterous game that he nearly lost, Spock asks Nyota again the following night and every night thereafter as soon as she finishes her dinner. It’s almost hilarious how he intensely he watches her spoon in the last of her meal, mentally willing her to bring the utensil to her lips so he can ask and they can be on their way.

 

She wants to be annoyed by it, with the way he’s been escorting her about, hounding her to play logic games when she was really hankering for a cool shower and the softness of her bed, but she loves the normalcy of it all. He was Vulcan and he was content and he was regarding her as a bondmate would, overbearing but adorably smitten.

 

That wasn’t to say he smothers her. Spock gave Nyota her space, allowed her to mingle with the others their on relief aid unencumbered by his presence as he socialized on his own but as soon as she made as if to leave for her quarters Spock materializes by her side like some conjured specter come to see her off. While she saw it as sweet and novel at first, the more he carries on with walking her about, the more Nyota saddens. This wasn’t their life, they’ll be back aboard the Yorktown at the week’s end and he’ll go from the vibrant, engaging Vulcan she’s witnessed here and regress back to his solemn, limping state.

 

When he bid her goodnight that evening after chess, she lingers in her farewell, kissing him as if he would disappear.

 

\------------

 

It’s not as oppressive as he made it out to be she thinks as they log the last of their samples from the day’s forging.

 

In the last week and half, she and Spock had discovered fifteen new species of grass, seventy two new invertebrate and and forty six new vertebrate, if their findings were correct.

 

Spock has been ecstatic about the research expedition to the point where not for the first time does Nyota wonders if he would have been happier attending the Vulcan Science Academy. But then her mind wanders morbidly to that brief point where Vulcan was there before her and then suddenly wasn’t. She can’t imagine not knowing him, can’t imagine him not existing and thinks it better that rebuked the school board and went onto Starfleet.

 

She uses the bone of her knuckle to worry away the sweat burning at her eye and looks over to where Spock’s cycling through the tricorder readings like a kid in a candystore. He looks up to find her staring and she smiles at his adorable expression of being caught mid-geek out.

“ Another successful day wouldn’t you agree, Commander?” she chimes, pocketing her stylus.

 

Spock blinks and takes on a softer expression as he glances back down to the tricoder screen. “ I would agree, k’diwa.”

 

Nyota laughs quietly through her nose in three, sharp puffs and shakes her head. “ You old romantic.”

 

He feins ignorance as to her meaning but briefly in the back of her mind she feels him there, warm and inviting. Spock powers down his tricoder and stands to his full height against the light of the sun. “ If you are ready, Nyota, we should return to the base and start our reports.”

 

Unless it is expressly necessary, Spock has only referred to her by her first or Vulcan sentiments of affection. It makes every Vulcan they encounter seem to gag at the emotion of it all but it’s one of the very few means he has at his disposal to claim her in front of them.

 

He warily eyes any new male they come across, creeping subconsciously closer to where she stands or sits, whenever said males attempt to talk to her. Seeing him so humorously jealous and covetous has been enjoyable to no end, though she wonders at the motivation of it.

 

Nyota grunts as she starts to rise from her perch when his large hands come around her waist and lift her to her feet. He does not readily let go, instead taking time to eye her with a longing she doesn’t need his telepathy to tell her it’s there.  Her eyes flicker up towards his face and flutter at the intensity of his stare. “ Uhh…”

 

She feels his gaze settle on her neck and watches as he visibly swallows and clench his jaw. _Feeling possessive, eh_?

 

She rolls her teeth over her bottom lip and watches as his attention refocuses on the plump flesh she’s grazing. _And lustful too_.

 

“ Spock, let’s go.” she says slowly as he inhales sharply at the touch of her hand at his face. Ok, maybe she shouldn’t have done that.

 

Spock retrieves her hand away from his jaw but keeps his fingers laced around her wrist. What she feels there in his touch is hardly platonic and her face burns hotly as his thoughts roll through her.

 

Nyota tries hard to not cry out as the emotions attached to those thoughts follow closely behind but she still ends up shivering with a gasp.

 

At the noise, Spock’s pupils blossom wide against the dark brown of his irises, drawing her closer towards his looming frame with a clear carnal interest. Weak in her knees, Nyota practical falls against him with a cloud of dust at her feet and the grainy noise of sand shifting beneath her boots. The hand at her waist tightens as he holds her contentedly up against him.

 

Her mouth sputters for air as if she had been holding her breath. Maybe she has, she can’t remember. All she can think of is how good he smells and how warm he feels and how natural and good it feels to have him touch her.

 

The fingers around her wrist shift along the line of her forearm, leisurely down and back up. Her hand twists inside his hold and falls back limply as she is filled with an inappropriate amount of arousal. Was it his or was it hers?

 

She looks up to find his left eyebrow up near his bang at her mental contemplation, her thoughts filtering over through his grip of her arm.

 

/ Does it matter whose arousal it is, if we both concur to feeling it?/  

 

That Spock chooses to reply mentally comes as no surprise. His mouth is busy leaving a kiss on the side of her palm and is taking its time in doing so. Her lids fall heavily to half cover her eyes as she watches the Vulcan slowly peel away his lips from her skin with a purr.

 

He studies the small slender hand he holds and exhales with a low groan from deep with his throat. Vaguely she feels his urge to mark her there but he denies him with a languid glance towards her eyes. She studies him warily as she feels the conflict within him. It had been months since he had bitten her and that he would feel the need to do so now startles her.

 

“ You want to mark me?” she asks timidly, seeking out an explanation for the compulsion.

 

Spock slides the hand at her back to rest along her hip, possessively thumbing at the sharp flare at its side. “ I want to because you are mine. I would have others know it.”

 

She smiles with a small scoff and tilts her head to the side. “ I’m sure everyone knows. You’re practically shadowing me all over New Vulcan.”

 

His jaw ticks and she hears a faint rumble coming from his throat that isn’t a purr. “ Whether _everyone_ perceives us as bonded is entirely different for those that are unattached that see you as desirable.”

 

His fingers tighten on her arm and a snippet of a memory not too long ago flashes over her.

 

_Their arrival is of course met with curious glances but there are those that are more interested than others, particularly with her face and figure. Val-pak has left their population decimated and in its wake a number of unbonded males and females alike. For most humanoids in the alpha quadrant, Nyota is far from unbecoming, and her company has been found to be quite agreeable._

_As intelligent as she is and politely observant of Vulcan customs, her presence among the male population has not gone unnoticed. He sees them try to engage her in casual conversation but Spock is not fooled by their overtures._

_He will not stand by idly as they try and court her, she is his…but he has hurt her with his depression and callous behavior over the years. He cannot give anyone the chance to gain what he works so hard to repair. His attachment to her is important, Nyota is extraordinary. She is his..._

 

Nyota comes back to herself, gasping up at his dark eyed stare as he pants back down towards her in equal breathlessness. Comprehension towards things she hadn’t taken notice of her in light of her species and cultural upbringing becomes abundantly clear. Her interactions over the past for days are now seen in a new point of view, a Vulcan prespective.

 

His open _Vulkansu_ affection, his lingering presence, his attendance of her now make more sense from the short meld between them. He wasn’t so attentive during their time aboard the Yorktown, his place by her side was well known and respected. Here on New Vulcan, however, they are new and curious guests but the sentiment in which he delivers his affinity towards Nyota heartens her as well.

 

It wasn’t Spock in the midst of a pissing match with other males, though if push came to shove he assures her that he would fight to secure his place as her mate. Calling her _k’diwa_ and escorting her around had been as much as a pleasure as his true desire.

 

A certain amount of decorum is demanded of him as a Commander in Starfleet and he cannot be as open as they would prefer him to be but here on their mission, away from the rules and regulations that he takes strides not to bend or break, Spock openly courts her to his contentment.

 

Nyota watches him bow his head to nuzzle her face and feels that drunken, giddiness she knows to be his Vulcan happiness brim over from the brush of his cheek. She nuzzles him back earnestly and plants loud kiss near the flare of his ear.

 

They stand like that for a while, alone and basking in the peace that could be found within themselves. How wonderful she thought, knowing that the other wanted them just as much and had no qualms with showing it. In the dusty, jewel tone rocky expanse, Nyota snuggles closer with a wealth of emotion coursing through her.

 

For the first time, that she can truly ever think of, she and Spock are both happy.

 

Not bound in their duty or staring down the latest fiend, not arguing some cultural difference or bizarre behavior of the other’s doing.

 

In this stillness in time, they are here in the desert with only themselves as company, exploring a new land and becoming reacquainted with love. She screws up her face along his shoulder and hides it along his neck, trying not to tear up.

 

She didn’t think that this kind of carefree, insouciant happiness would be a part of their relationship but that is now that tasted the sweetness of it, she can’t help herself in broadcasting it loudly between them. From the small smile that lengthens across his face as Spock holds her wrist, Nyota sees that he feels the same surprised pleasure.

 

The lusty appraisal she felt earlier burning at her hand returns and Nyota snorts in amusement.

With a streak of mischief gives the sharp line of his jaw a quick, playful nip and is rewarded with a low hum in his throat.

 

“ How much longer…” he drawls. “ should we wait...until we join ourselves again?”

 

He does not clarify what type of joining he’s referring to but if she had to guess, chances are he means every way possible. Nyota casts her eyes off to the side as she extracts herself delicately from his grip. “ We should wait until we’re _both_ ready.”

 

His expression falls close and the heat that was there in his eyes is snuffed in place of cool reasonability. “ Of course.”

 

She hides her exasperation by looking down as she dusts off her pants. “ Spock you should know I want you quite a lot.”

 

“ And yet you hold yourself back from me? Why?” he asks in honest confusion. “ If you want me and I offer myself to be had then why rescind it?”

 

She scowls and pinches the bridge of her nose as she tries to be diplomatic as well as frank with him. “ I just because I want something doesn’t mean I she do it or that I’m ready for it. Do you remember our first time?”

 

He flushes heavily at the thought of it and stares at the equipment he is hauling back to the flitter like a pack mule. “ This is different.”

 

“ I don’t know that it is.” she says truthfully. “ There were a lot of things that I wasn’t prepared for, the marking, the difference in the meld, your….” she stops herself and rubs at her own burning cheeks as she shifts her console and bioscanner in her arms.

 

Spock is lost in thought too, no doubt recalling each and every detail as if he had traveled back in time. They reach the flitter and load the truck quickly and quietly. Every now and then as they rearrange the items, they glance at the other from the corner of their eye to gauge the mood.

 

As they buckle into the flitter and shut the door, it is Spock who finally breaks the silence. “ I will wait.”

 

She looks up at him as he continues looking off into the distance ahead of them. “ As much time until you are ready and think it wise to recommence our relations, I will wait. I always want what is best for you, Nyota. I have not had the best ways of showing it but I want you to have the best of me as well.”

 

Nyota sits staring down at her lap as he finishing speaking, running her nail over the hem of her shorts. She spares one flitting glance up at his face as she replies before she goes back to looking down at her legs. “ I uhh...Thank you. Let’s talk more later, okay?”

 

Spock, noting her hesitance and saying his peace, nods as he puts the flitter in gear and heads back into base.

\---------------

 

Nyota worries at her nail as she goes around in circles in her head. She keeps the short for a reason, any uneven length, chips or breaks sets her into a fit of chewing. Digging around in the rock quarries for specimens has not helped her condition and leaves her in desperate need of a manicure.

 

She groans in frustration and flops heavily back on the single couch afforded to her in the efficiency. Why couldn’t she have just been more confident about them? Surely then they could both have what they want?

 

Things were getting weird again and she couldn’t tell if it was their exchange in the desert or the lessening number of days they had to themselves on New Vulcan. While logging their data and filing their reports the silence between them was easy if not expected, given the nature of their work but as they struggled to speak over before dinner and during their chess match it was clear that something had been knocked out of accord.

 

Nyota, not one to suffer something needlessly, bid him a good night after the first game in the hopes to retiring early but she finds herself wide awake with him on her mind.

 

Should they make moves to stay here or should they go back to Starfleet knowing what they left behind on New Vulcan? That...thing he could not speak of, do they have to wait for it to happen to get married or could they tie the knot...err bond sooner? Maybe they should go…

 

Her doorbell chime brings Nyota out of her musing and walking towards the door. She opens it automatically, thinking Spock would be the one to ring her this late in the hour but while it’s a Vulcan it is very much not Spock.

 

She stands there dumbly, blinking up at the dark pair of eyes looking down at her with an aloof expression. “ _Hello_ ?” she replies, quickly in _Vulkansu_. She had paused for so long, that she hurries to cover up her gaffe.

 

“ _Good evening, Ms. Uhura. If I could have a moment of your time_?” he tones back, studying her face as he does so. Nyota swallows, thoughts of the meld with Spock earlier resurfacing in her mind as the Vulcan watches her intently.

 

“ _Umm yes_.”

 

Nyota stands inside the doorway, using her body to block the entrance to her home and welcome him to speak. He seems pleased with this and moves his hands to rest within the sleeves of his robes. “ _I am uncertain if you recall seeing me before. I am unfamiliar with the nature of human memory though I know it is not eidetic as ours._ ”

 

“ _Yes, it’s not but I do remember you...you work at the reception desk, correct_?” Nyota puzzles.

 

At that the Vulcan male seems positively elated and nods with a slight bounce of his head. He fiddles again with his robes and Nyota notices how they look _too_ fine and _too_ formal to be worn casually at night. All too late does Nyota begin to wonder as to the purpose of his visit, now with the surprise of his arrival worn off with the exchange of conversation, she believes she knows.

 

Worry bites at her as she takes in his eager eyes and somewhat preening stance. _Oh no, oh noooooo, nope, nope, nope,_ she whispers in her mind. He’s practically smiling at her! This is so bad, so awkward and sooo what Spock was talking about.

 

The male doesn’t notice her inner turmoil and moves on with stellar grace. “ _That is precisely where we first saw each other. Very acceptable recall, indeed. I am called T’riel. I have noted your presence over the past 11 days and wished to express interest in-_ ”

 

“ _She is not yours to proposition_ . _Ms. Uhura is my intented._ ”

 

Nyota looks to her left to find Spock outside of his efficiency next door, looking every bit as livid as he sounds. His voice was quiet and even in its tone but there is an unmistakable sharpness to it.

 

She’s unsure of how much he heard but it was clear that Spock stopped midway through his night time ablutions. His pale chest is bare and still wet from the shower and he’s only wearing his black starfleet sweatpants. _Wait, he packed sweatpants for this trip? It's like 100 degrees outside everyday!?_

 

He and T’riel lock eyes and the tension between them doubles, to the point where Nyota fidgets from foot to foot. The quiet feels worse than if they were yelling and growling at each other. T’riel’s eyes look large and black as he moves closer to where Nyota stands. Nyota ambles back away from him, pulling her robe tighter around her frame, with a nervous lick of her lips.

 

Spock’s body is turned towards but his eyes stay fixed on the male in front of her and the moment the receptionist steps towards her his nose flares in barely suppressed outrage. “ _Leave_.”

 

T’riel looks as if he were going to protest when Spock counters early and goes to her side, leading her back inside her room by her waist. She shuffles forward into the room awkwardly with the speed in which he deposits her and spares a glance over her shoulder at T’riel’s irritated posturing.

 

When she turns to meet Spock’s face, he leans forward and gives a gentle nudge in their bond for her to wait. “ Please, excuse me.”

 

Spock moves away from her flustered face and steps back out into the hallway with the door sliding shut behind him.

 

From where she stands Nyota hears the mute tones of the Vulcans outside grow louder and more heated. She exhales through her nose and rolls her eyes up at the sky. “ Really didn’t need _any_ of this.” she groans softly into the air with her arms barred in front of her.

 

She pulls the belt of her robe tighter and thinks of whether to go to bed or wait on the couch when Spock returns, looking no worse for wear.

 

Nyota swallows roughly as he stands just inside the room by the entryway. “ T’riel will trouble you no further. He apologizes for his forwardness and I am sorry that you had to see me in such a state.”

 

He seems embarrassed, whether from being out with so little clothing or Nyota witnessing his brooding, she can’t tell. At first glance he seems unaffected but on the look over Spock appears far from calm.

 

His arm hang at his sides but his hands are clenching and unclenching into fists. His breathing is more rapid than one would think if he were truly relaxed, moving his chest like a giant bellow. When her eyes reach his face his eyes are as hard and unrelenting as his jaw line which sits tightly locked together.

 

With one last look over, Nyota nods to herself more than to him and walks over to him slowly. Spock watches her with that hard expression, not trusting himself to leave her alone if he were to touch her.

 

She takes his hands and immediately feels the strength of his disdain for the male that was outside her quarters. He feels responsible for his presence tonight, he had not claimed Nyota as he should with a stronger bond of marriage but he was at a lost as to what to do in lieu of it.

 

Not meeting his eyes, Nyota places his hands at her waist while she put hers at his shoulders. Turning her head, she silently offers herself neck for marking. She hears him swallow as he feels his want, approval and guilt at the action. “ Nyota, you do not have to do-”

 

“ I want you to. Please…” she says, quietly.

 

He huffs and pulls her closer, studying her stiff posture and poker face. “ Look at me, K’diwa.”

 

She tilts her head and meets his stare head on and parts her lips with a quick intake of breath. Spock’s expression softens and he speaks just as gently. “ This is not requirement.”

 

“ I want them to know that I am yours, this way…” she says with her eyes sliding over his mouth. His eyes fall shut and his grip at her waist tightens. Slowly but firmly, he pulls her up into her arms and brings her shoulder to his face. Her toes leave the floor as the air escapes her lungs at the first pinch of his teeth. She moans feebly into the heat of her room as he bruises his mouth against her skin. Her hands run over his neck and up his his hair as she brings her head to rest along his. “ Please stay the night and hold me.” she whispers, mussing his hair further with the current of her breath.

  
And did so for every night thereafter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No boning occurred because this is a T rated fic and I can't deal.


	5. K'diwa look at me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyota and Spock return from New Vulcan with a odd sort of displacement rolling through them. Are the two of them better when Starfleet isn't in the picture or is it just the return to the norm that has them seeing things in a new light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really short chapter

As much as she prepared for their return home to Yorktown, the transition still jars Nyota out of her New Vulcan respite.

 

After days of being in Spock’s company nearly round the clock, when Nyota gets back to her posting at the station, his absence was met with discomfort.

 

Spock seems equally dazed and befuddled, going through each task with his typically proficiency but lacking the spirit behind the motions.

 

Nyota isn’t certain but New Vulcan might have awoken something that both of them had been starving for during their mission tour but had been unable to put their fingers on, let alone achieve. As much as returning to the starfleet station and their crew felt like going back home, it left Nyota mulling over questions she didn’t know she had.

 

Ever since she had been a young child, Nyota had wanted to travel the stars and after years of rigorous study and brutal training, Starfleet had made good on making that lifelong dream a reality.

 

For Spock, the fleet of the United Federation of planets had been the utilitarian escape that his pragmatic nature craved and his wounded soul needed. He had faithfully tailored himself to be a dutiful and a well respected member of Vulcan society but his people far too often had seen him solely through the lens of his human heritage.

 

In their respite on New Vulcan, the pair had been service driven and attentive to their tasks, working like the well oiled machines Starfleet had molded them into. And even in their meticulous workings the two of them had still found a nice slice of time to coddle each other.

 

It was more than favored though, Nyota knows that Spock would reply that the time spent there was very satisfactory. She had loved their time on New Vulcan but leaving the planet behind made her question staying in Starfleet for the first time since she joined. Terrifyingly so.

 

How ironic that doubt would come to visit her after chiding Spock about his own. As it was it felt like he was making peace with his place in the universe and at her side in Starfleet. Maybe with the strengthening of their bond, Nyota was getting a glimpse of what he had gone through and felt for all those years of uncertainty? They had definitely make a difference, logging around a number of specimens for study and research while forging new friendships and connections among the Vulcan people.

 

Every now and then worry hangs over her, that if she were to go back would there another ‘ T’riel’ watching and waiting to court her. If she were honest with herself it was less of other males and more of her own mate.

 

She and Spock have been together for a little over five years. For better or for worse they stayed together, even when he wasn’t himself. The last few evenings they spent on his new homeworld gave her desires definition. When her Vulcan would come to bed, long after she had fallen asleep, and curl up against her with a slighty toothy kiss at her shoulder, Nyota knew for certain that was what she wanted for the rest of her life.

 

Before the sex resumed and they came upon the time of his odd, mating cycle, she wanted a promise of commitment. Nyota wanted them elevated to the next step of their relationship with all the trappings therein. It was a step they dare not think of while they were at the academy and a level that was far from their minds as they struggled with villain after villain in deep space but they often thought of now on the Yorktown. Marriage.

 

But would she be the one that Spock chose to spend the rest of his life with? Would his honor and duty elsewhere keep him from wanting marriage outside of the context of pon farr? After bonding, would Spock even consider performing a customary human wedding?

 

Every so often Nyota thinks of these things and every so often she has her doubts. It just so happens that they came back when Spock will not, or maybe can not, leave her alone. Nyota finds it just as well because she can’t leave him be either.

 

Off duty, they come together almost magnetically and hide themselves away in one of their rooms, in a crushing need to be as close as possible.

 

People have started to talk now, gossiping about what might have actually happened between them on their mission away to New Vulcan but Nyota hardly cares enough to notice. She was useful and happy with Spock, researching and logging their discoveries. “ Let them say what they will.” she says the first night Spock brings it to her attention. “ Let them think that they know something special while we actually live it out. I love you and that shouldn’t be a secret.”

 

There’s another meaning within her words, one that Nyota thinks that Spock doesn’t notice but he is touching her as she says it and kissing her when she means it.

 

A week after their arrival, the two of them still work hard to maintain the closeness they cultivated there, do the same activities they can and actions permissive while aboard the station.

 

It isn’t the same though.

 

Rules and regulations only recognize so much and without a formal Vulcan bonding or Terran marriage and paperwork to verify either, their behavior has gone back to being stilted and tempered while out in public. Privately, however, they conduct themselves very differently.

 

Whatever affection Nyota allows him Spock relishes with gusto. Their shoes are barely off and jackets hung on their hooks before he is tugging at her hand and leading her to the couch. There she sits, wiggling her bottom into the cushion to make herself comfortable before opening her arms to welcome him in.

 

Spock goes to her readily, curling his large frame into her lap like some oversized cat, purring and pawing at her temple. Once settled, the Vulcan rummages through her mind and gives her the same pleasure to do so with his, just as one would leaf through a newspaper and catch up on the odds and ends of the day.

 

Tonight, is like any other until eight minutes in he finds something of interest. Spock takes a hold of the tangled knot of concerns and presses the ball to the forefront of her mind. At the swell of those familiar doubts, Nyota nervously avoids his dark gaze and peers down at her shoulder. He studies her patiently, knowing why she is so apprehensive and that she’ll stop when she’s ready. He knows this because he knows her. When the tension eases, he nudges her firmly and calls her name. “ Nyota.”

 

She remains still and quiet even as he pulls her down beneath him on the couch below. The position makes both of them take notice of the other’s proximity, heatedly so but neither comment. For her part, Nyota takes pleasure in feeling small and delicate underneath his giant frame.

 

“ Nyota.” he prods again and this time Nyota swallows at the emotion he allows into his voice. Only for her and only when they were alone like this. It is an intimacy that they both enjoy but typically when they weren’t fully clothed.

 

“ Yes.” she whispers quietly, staring at the living room with unfocused eyes.

 

“ K’diwa, please look at me.”

 

Nyota sucks in her bottom lip and nibbles at it as she peeks up at him within the cage of his arms. He huffs at her coy reframe and lowers his body against hers. She sighs at the weight as well as the heat as he shuffles over her to displace his mass more onto the couch than her stomach. “ K’diwa, I will do that for you.” he says softly answering her unspoken desire. “ I promise.”

 

“ I want...I want you to, Spock.” she sniffs. She catches her bottom lip again between her teeth as it trembles from the emotion she refuses to give expression. “ But I’m, I uhh, on the inside, I worry still that I’m not enough for you and…”

 

“ You enjoy serving in Starfleet but you want to go back to New Vulcan.” he cuts in with her own latent confession. Nyota chews at the inside of her mouth at his knowing glance and sighs with a shrug against the couch seating.

 

“ I want that time back.” she admits, picturing New Vulcan in her mind. “ I want to be married and formally bonded, but I don’t know if serving in Starfleet would hurt our relationship. I also wonder if we would do better on New Vulcan…? It was a wonderful time...I almost didn’t want it to end but it created a bit of uncertainty. I don’t know what’s best for us or what’s best for me.”

 

Spock lowers himself further, bumping his forehead along hers until their noses brushed together. “ A wise woman once told me, we do not have to do, know or decide everything all at once.”

 

Nyota smiles with a quiet laugh and brought her hands up to run them over his shoulders. “ Sounds like quite the lady.”

 

Spock hums and tilts his head a bit nuzzle her face. “ Indeed. I am in love with her.”

 

Nyota makes a playfully hmph and scrunches up her mouth in surprise. “ Oh, is that so?”

 

“ It is so.” Spock assures her. “ I am going to marry her. We are going to live a long and prosperous life together.”  he says toying with her fingers at his shoulder. He brings her hand down to inspect each digit individually and lingers on her ring finger, gliding his index finger across it with what Nyota knows to be a coquettish sort of kiss. Even after all these years she still has to remind herself that touching his hands doesn’t hold the same sort of meaning for Spock as it did for her or any other human.

 

“ I am going to buy her a ring, illogical in its size for her to wear, procure a house of her choosing and take her to my bed every evening.” he says, punctuating his first statement.

 

“ Every evening?” she questions, lifting an eyebrow.

 

He nods sagely and circles two fingers over hers. The feel she gains from it still escapes her when it comes to description but one thing for certain is  “ I need to ensure that she is getting the proper amount of rest. She gets... _agitated_ if not allowed at least 8 hours of sleep.”

 

“ I do _not_!” Nyota protests pushing against his shoulder. The corner of his mouth quirks into a lopsided smirk as he evades her hands and rises up to his knees. “ I am just stating the facts of what I know about the wise woman that I love.”

 

“ Sure you are…” she says, elbowing her way up onto her rump. “ So what are we going to do for dinner tonight?”

 

Spock shifts to the ground and pulls Nyota towards him by her hips. “ Nyota.”

 

She moves forward readily and opens her legs wider as he comes to kneel between them. For someone so lean, Spock takes up a lot of space as he crowds closer still with her thigh spreading into a split. Nyota takes a breath as he levels a steady gazes at her, coming nearly eye to eye as he contemplates something she can’t glean from his touch. “ What is it?”

 

When Spock darts his gaze down her torso and back to her eyes, Nyota narrows her own with a jerk of her neck. “ Spock, we’ve talked about this. Not yet. I-”

 

“ You misunderstand.” he says cutting off her irritated protest.

 

Rifling around in his pocket, Spock stills his hand and then draws it out with a necklace trailing from his fingers. Nyota’s eyes go wide while her mouth gapes open. “ What are you doing? Spock? Oh my God.”

 

Spock poured of beaded string into his open hand and holds her gaze as he extends it towards her. “ I was unfamiliar with most of the customs regarding marriage in your culture so I took what I knew from my mother’s and sought to fulfill the rest with the help of your parents.”

 

“ You spoke with my parents?! What did you say? What did _they_ say?!”

 

She can’t breathe, can hardly hear him as he answers her and picks up the necklace up again between his hands. “ Is it too much to ask, for you trust me again?”

 

Nyota rubs at at her eyes and fans her face with her hands while shaking her head vigorously. “ Of course not! Oh my goodness are you serious?!”

 

The question seems to confuse him momentarily as he stares at her with his head tilted. “ Vulcans do not jest.”

 

Nyota’s breath quickens as he places the necklace over her head and strings the sapphires around her neck. “ It was past due for you to receive a necklace of your own. My mother’s was sentimental because of what she means to me but I wish to look at this necklace and think of only you.”

 

Nyota looks at the bright cerulean stones hanging loosely above her cleavage and takes a shuddering breath. It was happening, he chose her. He wanted her. Not for now, not for a while but for as long as life would give them.

 

As the image of the gems grows hazy in her vision, Nyota is unsure if it’s the light off the facets or the water burning at her eyes that blurs her vision. “ Oh my goodness.”

 

“ Blue I believe is the traditional color for engagement.” he comments as he nervously watches her face. “ Does it please you?”

 

“ It’s gorgeous.” she whispers, running her thumbs over the polished stones. “ I don’t know what to say.”

 

“ Say that you will bond with me. Say that you will marry me, that you will feel secure in me again.”

 

Nyota swallows loudly around the tightness forming in her throat as she nods and wraps her arms around him. “ Yes.” she nods into his shoulder. Spock holds her tighter then and runs his hands over her slender back.

 

From his skin, Nyota feels relief, joy and gratitude rolling off of him in waves. He was worried that she would ask for him to wait or be uncertain of giving her consent. The moment he felt her acceptance, the tension building inside of him evaporated and left him pleasantly at ease.

 

After a few minutes they recovered inside the tight wrap of each other’s arms. They finally untangle themselves a few moments later, long enough to search for dinner.

 

As they scrounge around in his kitchen, Nyota can’t stop herself from smiling. Heck she can’t stop herself from singing and dancing around the floor while Spock watches her in amusement. She shimmies left and right with a spoon in hand, chanting a silly rhyme that she creates moments after they start rummaging in the cabinets.

 

“ I’m getting marrriieedd, I’m getting bondeddd! My baby looooovess me, my man he wannnnntts me!”

 

She repeats the song until he catches her by the waist and tells her she’s being illogical.

 

Nyota scoffs and teases the hands he has at her waist with a finger twist she knows he likes. When his breath catches, Nyota smirks knowing she’s done it right. “ I think I’m being extremely logically given the circumstances. I’m happy. We’re happy.”

 

“ I saw your wish to go back.” he admits, thumbing at her hipbone. “ I am amenable whenever you desire to request our leave.”

 

Nyota leans back against his chest and gazes up at his face. “ Your mom’s necklace? Wasn’t it like an engagement gift?”

 

Spock moved his arms up to hold her tighter and sighs as he frames his answer. “ It was an heirloom in truth but I gave it to you because you as remarkable, just as she was. As my ko-telsu, you deserved a necklace and symbol of engagement all of your own.”

 

“ Thank you.” she chimes. She fidgets with her mouth and squirms in his arms. Her face hurts from smiling so hard but she doesn’t stop herself. For years when she was around Spock, Nyota found herself either frowning or professionally impassive. Her romantic love and needs had taken a backseat to her duty and his welfare but she had never thought that in that time Spock had seen that she needed his commitment spelled out and affirmed.

 

In the circle of his arms, the muscle strain in her cheeks from her newborn happiness paled in comparison to the pain she harbored in years gone by. It no matter if it was late or right on time, it was just what they wanted.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to this and a M rated add on that will be posted on its own that fits in between.


	6. Boui Boui Bunnies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyota catches up with Sulu and his family and revisits New Vulcan with Spock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working on BTSs, Crown jewels and a few gifts I owe folks. Been so great talking with you all, really fun, for real! There's a chapter that goes along with this that I'm posting by itself being it's M rated ( but a very mild M for me) but it goes along with this story. I'm posting it now and going back to the grindstone.

“ Hmm.”

 

Nyota holds her breath as Demora dances between her legs and that of her parents, all three seemingly oblivious to the anxiety the Lieutenant Commander is facing as she watches her father Ben looking over her beloved plant.

 

Ben shifts the fern in his hands, thumbing the mossy soil away from its roots to examine it further. “ Hmm.” he grunts again for the fifth time. When she begins to nibble at her lip, Nyota feels a light _pat pat pat_ in the space between her shoulder blades.

 

She cranes her to see Sulu shooting her a smile of reassurance and moving his lips to word that it will be okay. The sight of his grin is hard to resist and she's fairly certain that he regularly employs the charm on Ben as well with a similar effect.

 

Nyota wishes she could be so easily reassured. She wouldn’t have come if she thought that the wilting fern would have been fine. Already the its feathery plume like leaves had gone from a deep violet to something more like a halfhearted mauve.

 

She would also take Hikaru’s encouragement to heart if his husband would finally stop humming and give her an answer. As if taking pity on her Ben Sulu, looks up from his patient and gives her a nod. “ It will be okay.”

 

“ Oh thank God!” Nyota sighs with a hand to her chest. Demora giggles below her and leans heavily onto Nyota’s stocking covered legs. “ It’s okay. Daddy’ll fix it for you.”

 

“ That’s right.” Hikaru chimes, mussing his daughter’s hair while imparting an affirming wink over in Ben’s direction. “ So you gave us the verdict. What’s the rest of the ruling?”

 

Ben props his large arms up on the countertop by his elbows and glares at the plant as if it were speaking. “ Well it definitely got a lot of attention while you two were gone. Lots of water and sunshine, even some plant food, though it seems like it may have been for a different species of Monilophyta. Ultimately, your specimen is long overdue for a new pot, or pots I might say.”

 

“ Pots?” Nyota asks curiously over his use of the plural noun. Ben holds his hands out then with the fern laid out in his palm and Nyota leans over and notices where his finger is gesturing. “ Oh. I never noticed.”

 

“ Yeah, I’m not surprised. Ferns can be tricky, especially these Bolian beauties. So all along these runner here right on the roots are ‘new’ ferns fighting with the primarily plant for water, space and nutrients. I can divide it up for you and repot it all? Even throw in some of the right plant food for these puppies since I don’t have any Bolian soil here at this facility.”

 

“ I would love that! Thank you so much Ben.” she sighs, placing her hand onto his. Ben smiles back with a very self-satisfied grin and has Hikaru clearing his throat and playfully removing her hand. “ I’m sure you would, Ny.”

 

Nyota giggles as she snatches her hand out of Sulu’s grasp. “ A little bit jealous, are we?”

 

Sulu leans onto the countertop beside Ben and gives her a telling smirk.

 

“ No, but I know that you are extraordinarily charming and even possess the power to bring a Vulcan to his knees.” he quips, nodding towards her necklace. “ Mere mortal men like us hardly stand a chance against you.”

 

Nyota shakes her head with a chuckle and thumbs at the string of sapphires around her neck. Even in the hazy light of the greenhouse, the blue gems were ridiculously brilliant. “ Careful now, you’re starting to sound like Kirk.” she teases.

 

Hikaru scoffs with a smile and edges up from the countertop. “ Heaven forbid I sound anything like our resident casanova.”

 

Nyota ignores his idle comment and refocuses back to Ben, who’s now carefully dissecting the new growth from the underground runners. “ How much do I owe you, Ben?”

 

Ben looks up from his work and rubs his hand along his jaw, smearing the dirt along his chin. “ Hmm, well...this is standard work but I think the pots will cost you extra.”

 

Nyota smiles as she spies Demora clamoring up into his lap to examine the fern. “ Oh? How much more?”

 

He smiles down at his daughter and kisses her soundly on the crown of her head. “ In addition to lunch, I think a cookie for all three of us is in order. Don’t you think _Usagi_?”

 

Demora looks up at the mention of cookies with a gasp and loudly makes her agreement known.

 

“ Cookies!!!” she shouts running over to wrap her small, sweaty palm around Sulu’s hand. Holding his hand as she jump with glee, Demora grins up at him with the signature daddy’s little girl expression, which is made more effective but the dainty floral dress bouncing around her knees.“ Dad, cookies please!”

 

“ Yes, a cookie, but first lunch, bunny.” he says firmly. “ What do you want me to bring you back, B?”

 

Ben shrugs as he glances her the countertop for the right size pottery for the vegetative growth. “ Anything will do. Food. Bring me back food.”

 

Hikaru rolls his eyes at his husband’s vague description of what he wants, much to Nyota’s amusement and twists his lips into a grimace. “ Fine, something edible it is. Be back soon.”

 

Ben murmurs some sort of goodbye and the three of them leave him to his work. The trio make their way down to the avenue and slowly amble their way through the metro station. Demora walks between them, joining them all together with the soft crush of her hands and chatters endlessly about everything around her. Sulu feeds her one syllable replies as a way to keep her going but Nyota loves engaging her in the jovial sound of Japanese to explore her childish wonder.

 

When Ben and Hikaru first told Nyota of their plans to have a child through a surrogate, she was thrilled and doubly so when they asked for her to be Demora’s godmother.

 

As it was, she and the youngest Sulu were quite close, with the girl only referring to Nyota as her guardian as needed. She much preferred to call Nyota her _Oba Usagi_ or Aunt Rabbit in affection as the of them called her _usachan_ ( bunny).

 

This lunch is nothing out of the ordinary for them to do but the time spent away in deep space makes Nyota and Sulu both feel wistful and nostalgic as they board the train for midtown. Demora runs forward securing a seat for them near a window by promptly sitting in the middle with a wiggle of her bottom. Uhura and Sulu both smile and sit on either side of her, looking very much the family that none of them were by blood but more than by name. The officers hover over the child at ease, watching as she points out the construction still happening after Krall’s last stand aboard the station’s walls.

 

It’s not a memory neither wants to remember but it comes over the pair reflexively, as they recall all the fear of losing the bright, cheery girl between them. Only when his hand comes up to thumb away the tear on her face does Nyota realize she recollects far more than she thought she had. I know, Sulu mouths silently above his daughter’s head before making another reassuring sound to the child that he was indeed listening.

 

The hand that grazed her cheek then gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and a quick rub on her back before settling around his daughter’s shoulders. “ Yes, I do believe that is the largest crane I’ve seen. Ah, our stop is coming up. C’mon and hold my hand.” he prods her, rising up out of his seat with nary a wrinkle in his gold piped command grays.

 

Demora dutifully obeys him, dragging Nyota behind her as she pulls with all the strength her scrawny arm can muster to help her up. For her part Nyota acts as if she be foisted up out of her chair in a great deal of strength and ‘trips’ up onto her heels. “ My goodness, bunny! When did you get so strong?”

 

She’s instantly rewarded with a tiny, toothy grin, as Demora giggles and bounces up towards her. “ I don’t know.”

 

Nyota gathers the little one up in her arms and follows Sulu out the cabin doors and into the fresh recycled air of the station once more. Sulu sheds his jacket and hooked it over his forearm while turning to speak to Nyota as they walk. “ So what were you in the mood for? It has to be some place with cookies.”

 

Nyota sucks her bottom lip into her mouth with a hum and surveys the fare down the boulevard. “ If we go to the Parisian cafe, will you all make due with macaroons?”

 

“ What’s that?” Demora asks, wiggling down out of her arms to lead their small party.

 

Sulu flashes her a brilliant smile and hums as he tells her. “ Unbelievably delicious.”

 

Demora’s eyes widen as he draws her over to the zebra walk and wait for the mass of flitters to stop their procession. The stringy looking saplings from a variety of worlds sway in the wind the vehicles create along the median, giving a false sense of an air current in the space around them. It’s almost like being planetside if it weren’t for the obviously stark absence of fauna.

 

Demora brings Nyota out of her musing with another question as she goes on with her macaroon inquisition.

 

“ Is it still a cookie?” she continues, uncertain if they were trying to pull that ploy adults do when they trick kids into doing something to their advantage, like eating peas to run faster or cleaning your room to keep it free of monsters.

 

Nyota pulls alongside them with her heels clicking against the aluminum cement. “ Tell you what bunny. If you don’t like these types of cookies, we’ll go to the food kiosk in Starfleet headquarters and get you a cookie there okay?”

 

“ Yeah!”

 

Sulu looks up from where his daughter is celebrating and cocks his head towards Nyota. “ You’re getting soft, Uhura.”

 

She smirks back and tugs at her skirt. “ Yeah all over but I can’t help it. Just look at her! I can’t help but spoil her! You sure aren’t.”

 

He gasps in mock offense and scoffs as they cross the walk. “ I do _too_ spoil her. I let her around you, don’t I?”

 

Nyota wags her finger at him and smiles with a tsk. “ Ah, got me there.”

 

Once across, they make a beeline for black and white striped awnings of _Boui Boui cafe_. Stark white flower boxes line the windows and railings with cheery looking red and purple blooms and the pale blue umbrellas needlessly shading the patio, set the scene for their meal. As much as she would entertain eating outside, she knows from years of friendship, Sulu much prefers the privacy of a booth indoors.

 

With reflexes honed from years of fencing, Sulu dances a quick side step between them and snags the antique door open. “ Ladies first.”

 

Demora exclaims in wonder at the vintage style entryway and asks to open it herself, to which Sulu relents only after she asks the fifth time. The maitre d greets them warmly, grinning down at Demora with an amused expression as he guides them to a sunny booth in the corner covered in a crisp, white linen.

 

As the _maitre d_ dims the transparency on the windows Nyota picks up her menu and leans over towards Sulu’s ear. “ This was more fancy than I realized.”

 

Sulu chuckles through his nose with a sly smile painted across his lips. “ I’m sure you can afford it, Lieutenant Commander.”

 

Nyota twists her lips and gives him a pointed look over her menu. “ Of course I can. I’m just worried that bunny won’t enjoy herself.”

 

Sulu lifts a solitary brow not unlike a certain male she knows and huffs. “ Are you kidding me? Look.”

 

Nyota peers over to where Demora was neatly folding the napkin in her lap and straightening her silverware. With her jaw gaping open Nyota glances back over at Sulu with a nod of approval. He shrugs as if it were commonplace but she can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s proud of his daughter. “ Ben has been giving her etiquette lessons and with me gone so often, I like to take them out someone nice to eat every time I gain shore leave. Believe me, she’s had lots of practice.”

 

Once comfortably settled, their waiter comes by with sparkling water and the explanation of the _soup de jour_. Nyota turns to Hikaru with a easy discussion of what dishes they should pick for their courses and to share with the ‘bunny’ before glancing up at the waiter to order their meal in flawless French.

 

The waiter peps up at the first few syllables and makes a show of displaying their wine list. “ _All the best vintage grapes from all our France. And you’ll see here along the back we have a prime choice of wines found throughout the galaxy. You won’t be disappointed with anything hailing from the Bajorans. Their take on Chardonnay is simply exquisite and would go well with your selection of fish_?”

 

Nyota nods along and folds the slim menu in her hands back in half. “ _Sounds delightful. We’ll each have a glass and she’ll have a mint press_.”

 

“ Now you’re really spoiling her.” Sulu groans as he hands over their menus.

 

Nyota smiles sweetly and bumps his shoulder. “ I promise to be light on the simple syrup. It will probably be enough to just have the fresh taste of muddled mint in her sparkling water but she’s young and that sugar will burn right through her system.”

 

“ Ben is going to kill us.” he chuckles quietly eyeing his daughter as she adjusts her napkin in her lap. “ So, Spock? He seems different, lighter perhaps? And then there’s this new necklace around her shoulders blinding everyone in sight.”

 

Nyota thanks the waiter as he brings out their drinks and eyes the petite soup and salad the busboys place down onto the table in unison. She takes a sip of the wine and smiles into the glass as it slides down her throat with a chilly burn. “ It is nice, isn’t it? I had no idea he could be so romantic...well yes, but this was completely unexpected.”

 

“ But certainly not unwelcome.” Sulu comments back after a sip of his own. “ I wouldn’t how thought that a Vulcan could be so taken with someone until I saw Spock come after you on Altamid, injured as he was.”

 

Nyota withdraws the spoon from her mouth and swallows the soup in her mouth. The thought of Spock so pale and fragile bitters the taste of tomatoes on her tongue. “ Yeah. Somehow I knew he would come.”

 

“ The bondlink?” Sulu offers, carefully munching into his salad. He shots a warning glare in between chews as she tries to steal away more simple syrup into her drink and gazes over at her salad with a look that says eat it or else. Whether she does it out of fear of consequences or being chastised, Nyota doesn’t know but her goddaughter dutifully picks up her folk and tries to emulate her father’s eating style.

 

“ No, it wasn’t the bond link. After a certain distance Spock feels vague. I could only know that he was alive, not where he was.” she answers, going back for another sip of wine. “ I don’t know, it’s more that, knowing how far he would to do what’s right is easy to conclude but when he told me he came for me…”

 

She stops herself and smiles a little smile while thumbing her necklace. “ Hearing that...it healed something inside me I didn’t know was broken. It solidified my resolve to stay. I felt wanted again, not like some obligation he had to see through. He came because he loved me and I meant something to him.”

 

At her words, Hikaru smiles and raises his wine glass towards her. “ Congratulations. To you both.”

 

She raises her glass and gives a wide toothy grin. “ Thank you!”

 

“ Cheers.” he says tapping his glass against hers and Demora, who won’t be left out of the festivities. Their fish comes out soon after, dressed with a garlic, herb butter that gives the fillet a creamy texture that all three marvel over. Half the fish is gone when Sulu picks up where they left off.

 

Dabbing his face, he smiles at Demora but speaks to Nyota. “ So everything is back to normal between you too?”

 

Nyota casts her eyes down to the last of her fish and gives a slight shrug of her shoulders. “ In most ways they’re better. We’re talking more but more than that we’re listening more too. I feel like we’re really getting a chance to understand what the other has been going through for these past few years when communication was infrequent at best.”

 

“ You said most ways, what’s still a problem?” he questions, waving their waiter over for a refill of their wine.

 

Nyota waits until their glasses are full and the waiter departs before answering him. “ Well we’re not completely intimate.” she starts with sip of her wine. “ Which has been fine up until this time but I think it’s wearing on us both.”

 

Sulu hums with a nod, spooning over the last of the fish onto Demora’s plate while eyeing his daughter for any glimmer of understanding toward their conversation. Once the pair were both satisfied that she was blissfully clueless to the true meaning of their words, they go onward after their plates are cleared for dessert.

 

“ The physical aspect has always been easy. I mean…” she stops to gesture with her hands to allude to the face and build of the Vulcan while Sulu chuckles in agreement. “ We just...clicked. When we realized our feelings were mutual and more than just a passing phase, it was like a moth to a flame.” she admits with a faraway look. “ I don’t know which of us was worse with keeping things under control but the threat of being caught kept us somewhat tempered. After _Va’pak_ and his mother things were awkward...but after Khan, we just stopped…”

 

Sulu’s eyebrows furrow over his goblet as he takes in her words. “ You mean you both haven’t since…?”

 

“ Yes.” she says hurriedly, glancing over to where Demora is worshipping her plate of assorted macaroons. She hadn’t mentioned going to get a cookie once after she bite.

 

“ It’s like we would start but never quite reach the conclusion.” she excuses with a flourish of her hand gestures. “ We were just struggling just to stay together that we couldn’t get beyond that to just live. Spock was focused on where he should be and what he should be doing and I was just wondering if the other shoe was going to drop.”

 

“ So where does that leave you two now? I mean you’re engaged now, you’ve always talked about having a family possibly in the future.”

 

“ Is Aunt Rabbit going to have babies?” Demora asks cluing into their conversation. She had been so focused on thumbing up the crumbs of her dessert that neither of them had noticed her starting to listen.

 

Sulu glances over at Nyota with his eyes full of apology but she gives him a quick shake of her head to wave away his concern. She turns her face towards the girl and gives a casual flick of her wrist. “ Possibly bunny, I may have babies. It’s something that me and Mr. Spock have talked about.”

 

Demora chews her macaroon thoughtfully and completely removes what little social filter she has. “ If you have babies, are you going to call them bunnies too?”

 

Nyota laughs along with Sulu and tilts her head. “ Gee, I don’t know. Would you like me to, _usachan_?”

 

Demora pause with a quick flutter of her thick lashes as she considers the thought. “ Well, they can be little bunnies and I can be big bunny. That would be okay.”

 

She and Sulu nod down at her with approval as she sagely delivers her concession. “ That sounds great. How were you macaroons, bunny?”

 

“ Delicious!” she giggles through her teeth with a impish grin. “ We should bring some back for Daddy Ben.”

 

“ I think he would like that.” Sulu agrees and waves the waiter over to place an order for lunch and dessert to go.

 

He does so in French as well but not nearly as fluid as he pauses over the genders every few words. The waiter looks no worse for wear in trying to follow his choppy sentences, taking down his order just as he places it. If anything he looks pleased to have them practice. Once he’s gone Nyota switches back to Japanese. “ You need to tip that poor man well after all this.”

 

Sulu sniffs and gives her a sly look. “ I would but you’re the one treating us, remember? Dying plant drama?”

 

“ I was not being dramatic.” she huffs over the honey _cannelle_ cake they share.

 

“ You were crying.” he says flatly, hooking her fork with his to stop her from spearing the glazed strawberry on top.  


She grunts at his silverware attack and answer but gets her way as she uses her other hands to pluck the red fruit off the cake and into her mouth. Sulu tsks her as she smirks in victory. “ Too slow, Sulu.”

 

“ I’m playing fair, Uhura.” he shoots back playfully.  

 

“ Oh! Okay…” she says in false revelation. Clearing her throat, she swallows down the rest of the berry and imitates his deep tenor. “ _If you try me, you will fail_.”

 

Sulu laughs in spite of himself and pushes at her side with her elbow. “ Ha! I do not sound like that!”

 

“ _Oh my_ …” Nyota tease between bites of cake. “ _Ben hold me closer. Don’t let go_.”

 

Sulu bats his eyes and pouts his lips as he challenges Nyota to her own imitation game. “ Oh Spock how can I be with you when you make me _so emotional_? Meld with me! I’ve always have it bad for teacher and what I have in mind will have you giving me a court martial, Commander!”

 

“ What’s a court martial?” Demora asks, interested in their fun.

 

They look between each other as they wait for one of them to gain enough seriousness to explain between stifled laughter but are thankfully saved by the arrival of the check and Ben’s lunch neatly stowed away in an attractive bag that matches the awning of the restaurant's storefront. As much as he teased Nyota about paying, Sulu snatches the credit scanner away with a wave and jabs his thumb onto the check tab before she can get a chance to nab it out of his hands.

 

“ Sulu, I was suppose to get lunch as a payment of my plant!” she grumbles as he helps Demora out of her chair with a hand.

 

“ Consider it a bridal brunch.” he offers lightly with a squeeze to her shoulder. “ Besides I think Ben is going to want to keep a few of those ferns for himself so this should even it out.”

 

Nyota makes a sound of surprise and takes Demora’s hand as she juts her arm out to join them once more. “ Bolian ferns aren’t common but their not necessarily rare.”

 

Sulu shrugs as they get to the crosswalk and glances over to the station for the train arrival times. “ I said the same thing but he told me some jibberish about it being a hybrid strain or some such thing. A botanist...Dr. Grayson, cultivated a few on different planets. Yours apparently came from-.”

 

“ Vulcan.” she finishes, as the epiphany washes over her. It was his mother’s.

 

Sulu looks mildly surprised that she knew his response. “ Looks like you have more of a green thumb than I gave you credit for. How did you know it was from Vulcan?”

 

“ I didn’t.” she answers honestly. “ Hey, umm thanks for making sure it was ok.”

 

“ Anytime, Uhura. I can’t have _Oba Usagi_ sad now, can we?”

 

Demora skips between them and gives her father a hearty yes. “ If she’s sad, she’ll go to the moon like all the other rabbits, right daddy? But if she goes, she’ll be happy because rabbits eat candy there!”

 

Nyota’s expression morphs into that of confusion until Sulu waves it away. “ It’s from folklore. Last time we went back to San Francisco, Ben and I had family over. Demora’s Japanese cousins told her about the rabbits on the moon and she hasn’t been quiet about it since.”

 

“ I bet it doesn’t help that dad pilots a spaceship.” Nyota chuckles, stepping onto the platform. She was planning on going back to the Yorktown’s headquarters but now wondered if she should make her way back with the Sulus to retrieve her plant. As they wait she wonders over another idea. “ Hey Sulu, when Spock and I were gone, did the brass make a big deal about our absence?”

 

Sulu blinks as he thinks and then shakes his head. “ No. If anything it was good publicity coming our way. Not everyone is thrilled with us at the moment. A lot of people still blame Starfleet for what happened with Khan and with Krall turning out to be one of our own, things got a bit more bleek. Any good news for Starfleet is great news, at this point.”

 

She nods and crosses her arms over her chest. “ That’s good to hear. I’m thinking I want to go back to New Vulcan.”

 

“ Just temporarily, I hope?” he replies with a fold of his mouth. They had always been close and she knows that the relationship between her and his family was something she treasured just as much as she cherished her time with Leonard McCoy and Hendorff. Even if she were to seriously entertain living out of New Vulcan, the family she’s forged aboard the Enterprise isn’t one she would allow to fallow.

 

“ Just for another couple of weeks. I just have some more work I’d like to get down with Spock out there and some question I need answered. Besides, the ship’s almost up and I’m eager to get off this ‘snowglobe’.”

 

“ Ha ha, hanging out with Bones recently I see.”

 

She laughs to herself and nods as she thinks of their dour Chief medical officer. “ He’s super funny and devastatingly charming. Just like you.”

 

Sulu smiles at her with his whole face and bends to plant a quick peck against her cheek. “ I won’t tell Bones or Spock that you said that and you won’t tell him that I kissed you. Ah, train’s here. You heading back?”

 

Nyota nibbles her lip and glances at the space between them. “ I’ll swing back by later to get my fern. There’s some things I still want to take care off before I can call it a day. Tell Ben he can have all the extra ferns he wants and that I just want mine back.”

 

“ He’ll be thrilled to hear that. We all need to get back together again, cook in like we use to back at the house. Spock always liked that.”

 

Nyota agrees with a wistful sigh as she remembers the beachfront house Sulu kept off of Baker’s beach in San Francisco. When it had just been the four of them, they had grilled out on the patio and made a night of enjoying the western view of the golden gate bridge over drinks and light conversation. They had changed so much since then.

 

“ Yeah let’s do that when we get back.” she promises. Scooping Demora into her arms, kisses her small, soft face in a flurry of smacks. “ Bunny, be a good girl. I’ll see you again tonight, ok?”

 

“ Ok!” she chirps with a kiss of her own. She places her down and the two board their train car leaving Nyota on the platform.

 

She fishes her comm out of her pocket and dials her Spock by wrote. He picks after the third and welcomes her with a deep salutation that leaves her more eager for what she has to say. “ Hey. Spock, I’m ready to go back if you are.”

 

\-----------

 

She’s pleased that it’s not the same. The weather feels more stifling and the people more absorbed with their own business to intrude into theirs but New Vulcan still feels like a viable option of a permanent homestead.

 

Spock also seems to be less taken with the planet this time around as he makes what he calls 'observations' but what Nyota knows to be a list of complaints about the structure of the relief headquarters and the management therein.

 

She thinks it’s because they are assigned to different posts this time around but there’s also T’riel’s presence at the reception desk that she knows still irks him as they pass his station on their coming and goings.

 

It’s not all bad, both of them keep busy and pick up where they left off with acquaintances they met previously. And despite being assigned separate rooms again, they split their time between the two studios.

 

It’s at Nyota dorm room that they decide to have their evening meal the third night in. The evening is winding down and the second game into chess, Nyota is yawning over her pawns.

 

Spock tilts his head around the set and eyes her with a muted expression of mirth. “ Some would find my company much more entertaining than you do currently.”

 

She chuckles but yawns again. “ Most of those wouldn’t be still suffering from jet lag.”

“ Care to indulge in a cup of coffee?” he ventures. “ I will stay up with you.”

 

Nyota hums thoughtfully before giving a quick lift of her shoulders. “ Why not. My circadian rhythm is already off. May as well have fun with it.”

 

Their chairs groan against the cheap, vinyl flooring of the dining area as they abandon the table in an effort to get the percolator going. Spock stretches over her to grab the carafe while Nyota fills the sonic kettle full of water. Neither of them touch as they busy themselves with their task but the same sort of tension she felt with him out in the desert settles over her as Spock sticks near her.

 

That light headed eagerness that grounds her feet and makes it hard to feel that she’s getting enough air cloys to her like a second skin. The free sort of air hanging over the relief aid dormitory has infected her with an odd kind of bravado. Maybe Spock feels it too?

 

She turns and leans against the countertop while Spock studies her curiously. “ What are you thinking, K'diwa?”

 

Nyota meets his stare and turns her gaze back over towards the kettle at her right. “ I’m happy. I thought New Vulcan was the next step for us, the healthiest place for us to be but I think...the feelings that we felt during our stay were truly because we had time together.”

 

“ What feelings inparticular?” he asks holding his mug. Nyota finds it hard to answer as she drinks him in. Spock donning nothing but his undershirt and sweatpants always had that effect.

 

She clears her throat and tries to distract her eyes away from his frame by ruffling her hand through her hair. It was a silly move, sure to tangle every part she was mussing but she had to be able to think to speak and the sight of him so underdressed had her mind going blank. “ I don’t know, feeling close? Connected?”

 

Spock hums neutral and shifts the mug in his hands. “ Nothing more?”

 

“ Spock, you know-”

 

The shrill whistle of the kettle cuts her off and itself as it jars them both into action. Spock comes back towards her and lifts the silver pitcher up from the countertop, pouring the steaming water over the grounds before replacing the lid. Nyota watches his hands hop over the various items and swallows as they come to rest near her arm. “ What else were you going to tell me?”

 

She can’t meet his eyes as she says it but gives herself a mental pat on the back as she confesses her mind. “ After some consideration, I think, I’d like to that is, seek to gain a permanent residence on the Yorktown base.”

 

Spock inclines his body towards her with a slight nod for her to continue on. “ Well, we haven’t really sat and gone over our finances for housing but maybe we could buy a nice place on here, Earth and the Yorktown and rent them out accordingly?”

 

“ You enjoy the idea of residing on a star base?” he ponders aloud.

 

Nyota licks her lips and drums her fingers against the surface of the countertop with her nails clicking against the light marble. “ I enjoy the thought of being able to see old friends when they dock for repairs, making new friends as they tenants in the station changes and the neutral ground there…”

 

She didn’t elaborate as to how Yorktown was neutral but as clever and diplomatic as Spock was he nods along with her assessment. “ I think it’s a proposal worth exploring. We could use what free time we have while on assignment here to scout out housing and communities. Yorktown will be more of an issue of limited space while Earth I believe will come down to the preferred location.”

 

Nyota remembers that she and Spock each had family all over her homeworld so choosing to live near one might be seen as a slight against another, which she was already trying to avoid by having a place on New Vulcan as well. “ Ugh, you’re right. As usual. Oh well, we have time.”

 

Spock blinks down at her slowly as she runs the beaded line of her necklace between her thumb and forefinger. He looks as if he may kiss her but he remains unmoving. For the first time in a long while, he’s frustratingly opaque to her. He asked what she was thinking but it’s his brain she wants to pick. Does he feel the same restlessness that’s seized her? Does he want to kiss her or maybe he’s holding back because he wants something more?

 

He moves closer and Nyota tilts her head further up with her lips puckered for his arrival but she blinks in surprise as he reaches around her to press the perculator’s press slowly downward.

 

Nyota opens her mouth in surprise and...offense? Why didn’t kiss her and better yet why is she so upset that he hadn’t? Spock moves onto pouring them each a cup, seemingly unaware of his fiance’s brooding.

 

“ I’m tired, I think I’m going to change into my pajamas before I take in this coffee.” she says glumly slinking away. He make a motion of acknowledgement to leave her to her task and doesn’t glance after her even as she stares after him.

 

Entering her bathroom first, she splashes her face was cold water and studies herself in the reflective aluminum wall. Her face looks as flush as she feels and her eyes are dilated with the anticipation of what hadn’t come to pass. She should have told him she thinks as she moves about the bathroom to ready herself for bed, she should have told him she wants more.

 

Spock, though hardly free of the charge of misunderstanding, has always been a gentleman to her in all things. It was different than doting which he did plenty of but he also stayed his hand when it came to more intimate shows of physical affection.

 

Which was exactly what she was craving.

 

She wouldn’t have spilled all the beans with Sulu about her love life, for Spock’s privacy, but she was ready to pick up where they had left things before Khan’s arrival and Marcus’ betrayal. But he was being so...coy!

 

Her shower does nothing to alleviate the itch that plagues, if anything it makes it worse. Having to run the washcloth over her skin heightens her sensitivity along with the imagery of her imagination.

 

By the time that she emerges from the bathroom into her bedroom she rubbing at her arms and trying to work up the nerve to get dressed and face him again. What would Spock think? What would he say?

 

What would he do?

 

A sound of door sliding open has her turning around to face him. He stands there silently in the doorway taking in the darkness of the room as well as her appearance. The light of the kitchen frames his dark silhouette and sends a little thrill through her. She knows he questions her lack of clothing and her prolonged absence from the kitchen. Continuing his perusal something in her look answers his musing.

 

Spock watches her as he moves inside the room, slowly stalking over towards the bed. He stills at the edge waiting for her to move next and when she does with her heart racing inside her like a flickering light.

 

Nyota's hands find him in the dark and search him out like hungry little thieves pillaging a storehouse. She touches him frequently but it has been ages since she’s done so with the intent she currently has.

 

Spock sighs as her hands glide across him, swallowing loudly as her mind comes into to focus. His arms come around her and she’s lifted into that all too familiar lock within them. Just as quickly his lips find hers and they’re kissing with something that lies between the cusp of ravenousness and infatuation. The taste of the coffee they brewed earlier floods her mouth as his tongue swipes across hers and up across the roof of her mouth. Her hands fly up to cup his face and draw him deeper, with a madness that passes rapidly between them.

 

When their lips part they're on the bed and when they come back together she’s sitting up in his lap as he pants raggedly over her face. She feels light headed and the skin of her lips feel numb and overly hot. Spock is in a similar state, lips swollen and eyes glazed over and impossibly dark as he stares at her through heavy lidded eyes.

 

After a moment she realizes he’s waiting again, wanting but waiting, desperately seeking her permission to go on. The passage of time which had been freed from its reins now regains its normalcy. The frantic pull that they answered to earlier is paused as they regain their wits and slow their breathing. Slowly the room around them comes into a soft focus as her eyes adjust and find the small nightstand and dresser highlighted in the blue haze of the crescent moons suspended above them outside. Spock is similarly highlighted, looking like some dreadfully handsome prince of Vulcan Old, which has him humming quietly in amusement.

 

“ Well, you do.” she huffs, embarrassed by her musing.

 

“ Do not be. Embarrassed, that it.” he says, running his thumb over her lips. “ I am flattered.”

 

“ I am too.” she says and feels his regard shift away from her face to her body pressed against him. She wanted to say more, tell him something witty or sultry that would have them breathless and panting and set the mood once more but in one of those ironic twists that happen in the universe words fail her, even as a master of them.

 

Spock quietly takes in the muddled mess of her emotions and brushes them gently away. With a hand to her back and one at her side he brings her closer and gives her a unnerving sense of deja vu. “ You do not have to say anything, Nyota.”

 

So she takes his advice by closing her mouth over him once more and succumbs to the inevitable carnal reunion.  

 

They stay clung together atop the mattress as they regain their breath and composure but time does not touch them as they do so. The light of band of stars outside never shifts and the sounds of night never waver, leaving them with little signs as to the passage of time. Nyota slumps against him with a shuddering breath and Spock brings them back down to the mattress with him on his back.

 

His arms move to wrap around her and that’s when they first note the difference. Her eyes move through the moonlit room as she takes in the presence of him in her mind. “ Spock?”

  
She can’t see him tilt his head and breath through his mouth but his feels him shift under her as he does so. “ I feel it too. I feel you there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow almost done which is nice considering I was only going to have this be one or two chapters LOL. Speaking of which, this is the second to last with a secret M rated chapter that I'll be posting by itself titled ' The best in me'. If you're chilling with the T rated, skip that story but if you want M rated go on ahead! For me it's something very mild as far as smut goes but it's suppose to be nice and sweet not rough and grrr.


	7. A Captain's honor and joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyota and Spock leave New Vulcan and then leave Yorktown aboard the Enterprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This here is the ending folks. Lemme know what you think. Happy halloween BTW

The rest of the night and morning is spent in a light, restless doze. It’s not just the shifting of their bodies but their minds against one another that rouses them every so often. 

 

Spock is able to shrug the sensation off more soundly but for Nyota the movement inside her head is like waking up to a whole other sense. As much as it tires her, the feeling also thrills her with the same enthusiasm that an infant would have at learning how to sit up or crawl.

 

In the encasement of her sleep, their dreams merge and sensations blur into a deep sense of buoyancy. Against his chest, Nyota feels buoyed above the vast ocean of space, nothing but a massive, shapeless void engulfing her until Spock moves and sends a wave of color across her mind’s eye like a nebula in bloom. It was more than glorious, it was heaven.

 

But as always the other shoe had to drop and Spock opens his big mouth to spoil her rapture.

 

“ Nyota. It is nearly time to leave to report for work.” he informs her, rubbing a hand at her back.

 

She ignores his warning and instead concentrates on the small circles his drawing over her skin with the tip of his fingers. 

 

“ Nyota?”

 

“ I heard you.” she murmurs giving in a bit to the responsibility that riding them both. “ I just don’t want to go.”

 

“ The feeling is mutual, as you know.”

 

“ Then why are you bothering me about the time instead up prepping yourself up? I don’t see you making any moves to get out of bed.” she accuses playfully.

 

When he rolls them over and rises from the bed, Nyota groans in defeat as her teasing backfires on her. “ No, no, no! Come back Spock! Please! Dammit! Get back here.” she orders him with a whine. 

 

Spock shakes off her grip as she tries fruitlessly to drag him back into the bed by his leg, sending mirth tickling at their ribs. “ We shall be late.”

 

“ Late,  _ shmate _ . Get back in the bed! If we start now we can still report for processing with time to spare.”

 

Spock gives a heated look over his shoulder as he draws out his clothing from the dresser. “ Are you trying to bribe me?”

 

She glances down at the sheets coquettishly and pulls at the duvet beneath her. “  _ Bribe you _ ? I wouldn’t say that my affection is a  _ bribe _ . Could anything that’s freely given be a bribe?”

 

Spock studies her for a moment before replacing his clothing. Quietly, Nyota swallows and runs her tongue over her lips as he slowly starts towards her with a look that bores into her. “ Bribe, to persuade an action in one’s favor, usually in an underhanded or covert fashion, by a gift…” he croons with his head tilted to the side.

 

He stops at the foot of the bed and watches her flop back onto the mattress in a manner no doubt meant to entice him. “...a gift of money, merchandise or other temptations…”

 

She bites her bottom lip to stifle her laughter but shivers with a hum as he runs his hand across her bare belly. He traces the light spilling in through the blinds that fall across her skin, following the path they highlight along her torso. When his fingers glance across the slope of her hipbone, his eyes widen at the sound of her gasping. “ By definition,  _ you _ are bribing me, Nyota.”

 

His hand closes over her hip and strokes against the velvety exchange there with the pad of his thumb. She can vaguely feel him considering what to do, calculating time and weighing consequences if he forsakes caution and indulges himself once more. His ambivalent hesitation teases out a smile out of her. 

 

Spock could make all manner of things adorable, even making out. A huffy little grunt leaves his lips at the insinuation but makes no further protest. He’s too distracted, too enthralled with the idea of joining them once more. Residual feelings born out of last night coupling sinks in through his fingers and make her squirm just as much as when she first felt them. 

 

“ Spock.” she whispers. Spock snaps his eyes up towards her face and pins her place with a look makes her clench. Placing her hand tightly over his, Nyota meets his eyes with her own and lowers her lids coyly. “ Consider this a gift.”

 

The muscle in his jaw twitches as he wars with the joy of having her and duty but before she can try and wrestle him free from the pressure of having to choose, his large frame is caging her against the bed, reminding her of just a few hours earlier. “ We risk being late.” he says staring down at her.  

 

Nyota turned her head against the pillow and watches him through the hair that lands over her face. “ A risk, I believe, we can both agree is worth taking. Better yet, a gift worth receiving, not a bribe, darling.”

 

Spock narrows his eyes as he sniffs at her scent and that of her arousal while muting the growl reverberating inside his chest. “ You give as a gift but for this one you have always been a temptation.” he rasps as his closes his mouth over hers.

 

They’re not late but neither did they rush. 

 

\------------

 

_ Back aboard the Yorktown _

 

Nyota smiles to herself as she monitors the progress of her communications team, listening to M’Ress and Hawkins jovially punch through subspace calls and video feed while trying and failing to flirt covertly between calls. Nyota lets them slide out of empathy and, if she were being honest, out of the entertainment value. Listening to the Jr. Lieutenant trying to purr out a traditional Caitian compliment towards his fellow crew member was just too rich to pass up. Besides, he was actually making some leeway with the tawny coated miss. 

 

The turbolifts opens but she barely glances over to the figure she knows is there. His steps a steady and even, boots tapping with a light air about them. You’d never knew he once had a staggering limp, never know that behind his crisp blue tunic lies a silvery gash running from his side to his pelvis.

 

She knows though and every day of recovery was worth the pain. When he crosses the bridge to give a nod to the captain, Nyota knows he does so in genuine contentment. He’s put himself back together and everything has fallen in place. Lt. Darwin’s voice sails above the chatter of beeps, clicks and whistles as she greets the first officer from her post in navigation. 

 

He pauses near her and tells her something in hush tones that makes her sniffle. “ Thank you, sir. Pavel wasn’t just a boyfriend...he was my best friend.”

 

Nyota doesn’t turn around to see how Spock reacts to her grief of losing Chekov but his words are delivered in a heavy timbre. “ I grieve with thee.”

 

“ Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” 

 

The commander resumes his rounds while making his inspection, a PADD in hand only to convey consoles and machinery in need of a re-eval and reconfiguration to engineering. His steps come closer and Nyota spies his hand extending out towards her console. A small clink issues from his fingers and when he withdraws his hand she sees the earrings she had been searching for earlier that morning. 

 

She looks up towards his face just in time to see the ghost of a smile cross his face as he goes over towards his station. He leans over and taps in his co sign and Starfleet number into the console to bring the science station online. 

 

Nyota tilts her head in the direction of his backside and smirks as she threads on her neon green hoops. She couldn’t wait for that evening, had been bouncing in her seat at the very thought of it but she tears her eyes away from Spock’s butt to go through all her duties. 

 

It’s the day of their maiden voyage but a different sort of Christening is happening on the observation deck tonight courtesy of Jim and his everlasting loyalty towards to the two of them. 

 

Spock peers over at her in a look she knows to mean her excitement is bubbling over onto him. He’s not upset or even bothered, just merely amused by her giddiness over their wedding just hours away. Though she doesn’t hear it the words soon come to mind as he stares at her before abandoning his post to stand at the side of their Captain. 

 

If you had asked her five years again where she imagined herself, she wouldn’t have thought to say about to be married to the first officer, promoted for bravery and exhibiting courage in the line of duty and the happiest that she’s ever been serving aboard the Enterprise.

 

“ Lieutenant Commander. Commander. Everything good to go in science and communications?”

 

“ Affirmative, Captain.” Spock replies, slowly coming to attention.

 

“ Second that. Scotty out did himself with the retrofitting! This buttons on this console move smoother than a baby’s bottom.”

 

She sees Spock give her a quick blink of exasperation at her phrasing but nod his head in agreement. “ The upgrades are very much a welcome sight and long overdue. I have noted only 18 consoles in need of review.”

 

“ Agh, a simple thank you woulda been enough, sir.” Scott pipes in passing on his way to the next machine. “ No appreciation. I canna get one thank you, for keeping us up and running with what I was given on this mission and now that the Enterprise has her nacelles polished and her decks all done up, all of ye wannu take her away from me or still complain that I don’t have her looking and running like the jewel we know she is! Leave meh lass alone, ya curmudgeon!”

 

Spock’s eyes flutter and his brow raises gracefully in surprise. Scotty swallows and shrugs off his sudden ire and sheepishly gives a salute. “ Sir. Far be it from me to wag my tongue at you on your wedding day.”

 

“ At your posts, you three. This get the ship up and outta here. Lt. Commander, please alert Yorktown we’re prepared for departure. Lt. Darwin confirm our course for heading 613 mark 421. Mr. Spock you have the con. I have a wedding to prepare for.”

 

Aye ayes calls out from each corner of the bridge as the crew there sets itself to work while their Captain leaves the bridge.

 

In the flurry of activity, Nyota coordinates the ship’s departments for departure, before giving her final hail to the Yorktown base for permission to undock. Once granted, her grip tightens on the edge of her console as the ship bobs free of its tethers. 

 

She sees Spock from the corner of her eye, turn in his chair and lean forward towards Hikaru. “ Mr. Sulu prepare for launch and for go on my mark.”

 

“ Aye, Commander.” Sulu replies, engaging the inertia dampeners. A new photo replaces the old one of Demora, one with the whole family looking charming and happy. She doesn’t know how he convinced Kirk, Spock or Scotty to let him down it but Hikaru also has a small potted fern, her fern’s progeny on the top of helm station. She chuckles to herself quietly and thinks to name it Groot and tease Sulu with the name Rocket. It’s almost fitting actually.

 

“ Ready for your mark, Commander.”

A dry sort of static races up her arm along with a pulling tide of...grief, followed up quickly with a wave of amusement. She turns her chair towards Spock and sees that he’s already watching her. He was thinking of his former Captain, his friend and countless others but he was remembering them the way that he came to care about them.

 

Not everyone that they knew had made it up to this point but in their time away and their coming back together Spock made it his commitment, a new mission of sorts to live his life to the fullest in their remembrance. She can feel that he thinks they would have approved, his mother, Pike, Chekov and countless others and that he had stepped out of the shadow of Val-pak and taken time to stand in the sun. 

 

A warm blush of affection curls up from her middle and reflects back her own. Spock’s excited about the events of the day as well, eager to tackle the mysteries of the universe with her as his wife by his side. He’s happy to live again and  _ they _ made him that way.

 

Turning back to the screen and observation port, Spock leans back in the Captain’s chair and steeples his fingers and lifts a brow in humor. “ Punch it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't write anymore ( the wedding and the events thereafter) without feeling the nagging need to go to M rated stuff LOL. If ppl really want to see Kirk marry off the pair I may consider doing an additional one shot to correspond to it. Love you guys so much and thanks for reading. LLAP

**Author's Note:**

> I guess their could be more but honestly with Between two suns and crown jewels Idk and because of alcohol kind don't wanna. If you think there she be another chapter lemme know and I dabble in it some more. Thank you for reading and I hope that you like it, like I honestly, sincerely do y'all.


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